and now with over 25 years of experience mental health and spirituality dr. James house

okay well good afternoon everybody I hope your your Friday is going along splendidly so wherever you are in the world at this time I set up like I said I hope you're having a good day so far welcome to reclaiming authenticity finding one's courage to reclaim that which has always and I mean always been in you very excited to be with you here today every Friday at 3 p.m. Eastern Standard Time noon Pacific Standard time and if you're Tuning In For the First Time welcome welcome always enjoy having new listeners and I'll tell you how to get in touch if you'd like to be part of the show today a little bit you know coming up here but it's like to explain that each and every week these broadcasts or focus on something that's always near and dear to my heart and that's this site integration of spirituality with our mental

and it's just amazes me yes we are all connected but just how are spirituality and mental health go hand-in-hand where we gain insights in one area will often give us insights in the other and vice versa and I place this integration of spirituality and mental health all in the context of relationships with ourselves and and who we are every time we look into the mirror and and what we think about ourselves and so forth how we interact with others and our relationship with God or the Divine the universe and so forth and the other main reason why I place this integration in relationships is we all first of all we're not you know we're not an island unto ourselves John done once said long time ago no man or woman is an island and so we are social creatures and we have to interact with each other and you know I do it again just as

I'm a firm believer that you know Finding Your courage to reclaim that which is always been in you I also believe that it's within the context of relationships that we often receive our our deepest physical emotional psychological and even spiritual wounds and this is unfortunate but it's also understandable however and this is neon these wounds are not the end of our story but we can discover also and you know a lot of irony that are greatest healing and strength and peace and forgiveness and love we can we can discover we can Embrace and we can live out those things through healthier relationships and these relationships when we think about them just might be within our own families or what about our co-workers and what about our friends okay because whenever we try

transform we also transform others by our presence on our Grace and understanding but first forgiveness kindness and compassion begins with how we treat ourselves because we think of it this way whenever we are compassionate with ourselves we can then be compassionate with others or when we are more forgiving with ourselves then perhaps we could be more forgiving of others and when we were able to live in gratitude with ourselves I guarantee you we will then discover how this opens our hearts to see to embrace and to live in gratitude with others transformation first and foremost begins with us

dr. James how can if you would like more information information about me or to leave me your comments about Today show I just invite you to visit the website it's www.bebe.com backslash reclaiming authenticity that's www.bcbs.com reclaiming authenticity and just in case you want to go back and listen again these broadcasts or podcast it so you can go back into the archives and listen to previous shows and shows that you may have missed or you want to listen to again and as I said earlier if you want to be part of the show like to call Lynn I invite you to call the toll-free line it's +888-627-600-8886 to 76008 and give me your insights or comments and thoughts on today's subject

but that is the Power of One Voice Power of One voice because when you find your own voice and you claim your own voice it is often compared to us the sound of thunder it is that powerful it is that Empower ring so the power of one voice and for those you as I said new to the program welcome aboard and I just like to say that I'm a firm believer that all of us already come into the world equipped and graced with everything that we need in this life and when I say everything that we need I'm talking about our giftedness are skills or talents are character traits strengths personalities and so forth however long in life and perhaps due to some unpleasant memories your experience is simply just being in the wrong place at the wrong time

we may feel that we need to hide that Talent or those skills or our uniqueness or our giftedness or perhaps we push our gift in this way down so that others you know cannot see it because unfortunately maybe sometime in our life we feel like we had the live up to somebody's expectations were what we had shown others was exploited in some way but

you know it's it's unfortunate because when we do that we do not realize I realize our giftedness in fact we don't even understand or have the capacity to yet even embraced all that there is yet to discover about us I maybe you were told that you would never amount to anything or you know whatever other voice get all we heard that some point telling us that there's nothing special to us and that's just wrong that is just wrong and that comes from people who do not understand their own uniqueness what's special about that and so forth okay but as I said at any rate we do not realize our giftedness in the very best parts of ourselves and we tend to go through life functioning from a place of woundedness or this place of victimhood instead of a place of healing that were or place of wholeness or really embracing

are Hatchet toss our uniqueness as it were so again if you are listening for the very first time thank you for tuning in and welcome aboard well as I begin with it seems like every one of these broadcast each and every week I have to start off with a question you know it's like what a great way to get on board okay this is a fun question anybody's out there ever remember reading the story or later perhaps watching the movie doctor Seuss's Horton Hears a Who

dr. Seuss Horton Hears a Who OK it's a classic obviously okay and if you haven't heard of this story I just wanted to share with you just an overall just of the story without divulging any spoilers okay but the get if you haven't seen it you you've got to watch the movie at the it's like I said just a great great story the whole way through so anyway just the general overview Horton is an elephant and the heat just you know as all stories begin Once Upon a Time was just walking along one day minding his own business when all of a sudden he hears a strange sound coming from one of the specks of dust on top of I would call it up a budding flower

and if the oldest intrigues him and then the he listens again and he hears the sound like you know just over and over at the very very faint but you know he's the he hears that none and he learns that this sound is coming from this microscopic town of Who-ville and ironically he's the only one who hears the people of Who-ville nobody else cat but he's trying to convince them that Taylor's people on this Speck there's a whole town there there's a large amount of people and everybody just thinks that Horton is crazy or he's lost his mind or it's like yeah okay Horton sit down before you fall down kind of thing I'm okay but the people of Who-ville are in fear for their lives because they are so small in and just perhaps considered insignificant to others

and as a result Horton then vows to protect this spec declaring a person's a person no matter how small and he says that over and over throughout the story well the back story regarding how the author dr. Seuss came to write this tale it's a fascinating one it was just it was such a joy that I just did a little research in this area and it's like wow this is a powerful story that goes like this during World War Theodore Seuss Geisel otherwise known as dr. Seuss was a cartoonist who illustrated some pretty unflattering pictures of the Japanese people and like I said this was during World War II and he came under a lot of scrutiny for these unflattering pictures however in 1953 was dr. Seuss Who visited Japan

to research an article for Life magazine and he wanted to write about the effects of the war and postwar efforts on Japanese children

and so he commissioned the help of hope I pronounce his name right mitsuki Nakamura dean of doshisha University and kicked out and with the help of mr. Nakamura dr. Seuss went to schools all over Japan and he just simply ask kids to draw what they wanted to be when they grew up something very simple I'm sure that we've all drawn these pictures before okay and what sus Saw made a deep impression on him when he returned to America he started his work on Horton Hears a Who

and it was this book that actually reflects his change of heart about the Japanese people and this book is dedicated to Nakamura and there was one interviews that dr. Seuss Who had done and he said that the Japan was at that time just emerging and the people were voting for the first time and they were running their own lives and this theme was obvious a person's a person no matter how small

then didn't he went on to say like I don't really know why I decided to select an elephant but you know hey it's fit so Horton Hears A Q who highly recommend it if you've never read the book well this is a prominent theme that emerges time and time again when people not only find the power of their voice but they also begin listening to the empowerment of others

they to find their voice and they are never the same again and as I mentioned it's like the sound of thunder

guy gets kind of that tension getting when somebody really steps into their power and how that power is reflected in as you know as in the throat chakra and that's a very powerful and empowering for a lot of people and this is often the case with anyone who has gone through and kind of trauma or an event in their life which a person's assumptions have been completely shattered and to find our voice or to reclaim our voice it takes time but it can be done

and key element in finding your voice and claiming it and using your voice does have an effect on our brain

and the world of science calls this phenomenon brain plasticity or neuroplasticity and other words just rewiring the brain and basically neuroplasticity allows that the neurons are the nerve cells in the brain to compensate for being injured at some point or let's say they were affected by disease and to adjust the activities and response to new situations or to changes in the environment

IQ there's actually an old saying and Neuroscience that neurons that fire together you are wired together and this means the more you run this neural circuit in your brain the stronger the circuit becomes

and this is also why the quote another famous saying you know practice makes perfect because it's not just training your muscles it's also training your brain or retraining your brain or to think of things differently to see things just you know when I adjust your your thoughts and your perceptions and so forth okay well in really layman's terms neuroplasticity means that the the brain can relearn how to process our senses you know we can process what we see it that the reprocess are sounds we hear case and touch and smells and speak and and I can also send signals to muscles so people can walk again or whatever the issue is

and the ability to learn new things and really enhances your existing cognitive capabilities and even helps people recover from strokes and traumatic brain injury you said is very fascinated work and some of the students that I have talked to or ghetto from other colleges or universities Dave also you know those who are involved in more like Speech Pathology they find a quite fascinating because they're actually working hands on with people to you know how do you retrain your brain to speak again or how do you retrain your brain to walk or even to reach out and pick up an apple or a ball or pencil okay so they are just thrilled by it in the snow very much Cutting Edge technology even though this is been going on for a while I think we have yet to see just how much the brain can just rewire

self and to really learn and just how people again reclaim parts of themselves that were damaged due to an accident or some sort of disease or illness well if you have ever seen the movie The King's Speech again I recommend this movie it's just a great movie so fun movie The King's Speech which Bluestar's Colin Firth Helen Bonham Carter and Geoffrey Rush and if you are a lover of History you'll love this movie guys because if you've seen that you may recall that King George the sixth had severe speech impediments in other words he stuttered and it was very painful in the opening scenes where before he became king he was to give a speech I believe it was at Wembley Stadium

and he just struggled through it and it was just it was painful to watch him just be tortured through the speech impediment let alone trying to sit there and listen

well through the help of his wife as The Story Goes that he was able to retrain his brain to control his stuttering problem getting this is where Geoffrey Rush comes then he was actually an australian-born theater person and so you know he taught him how to protect his voice he taught him how to slow down and and speak clear. Gilmore more clearly I should say and perhaps the one part of the scene that one part of the movie the one seen that I really connected with is when they were just talking one day just the end of the king and Geoffrey Rush his character about childhood trauma and you just realize that he died only had stomach problems because he wasn't being fed by one of his nannies and just just a lot of painful experiences that he really had to stifle his

voice what you do and just lived in a lot of fear and he just didn't see himself as being empowered but whenever he started to get in touch with this this started to open up his voice you know when he started to retrain himself as to if you know how to speak properly and again it was just you know practice makes perfect but this is one of the ways in which the brain can retrain itself that the brain can actually heal from the specially something very traumatic in childhood well plasticity has certainly come a long long way and it's just fascinating the matter research that's been done in this area because it has given hope to millions of people and a couple examples here it's like for parents of special-needs children plasticity has demonstrated how we can use speech and language therapy to improve

communication as well as curb the behavioral challenges that perhaps come with a special needs children and fascinating work it's it just gives the kids a sense of control as well as hope for the parents and very easy to reinforce and it's just a matter of you know practice makes perfect and musicians can also illustrate you know this experience dependent neuroplasticity if you will but whenever we learn to play an instrument you know we are involving or left brain and right brain not simultaneously or against science is called left brain right brain synchronicity and music therapy is an excellent way for people to rewire their brain activity specially when it comes to reading and playing music at the same time and when you sing music as well you're using that left brain right brain

and again for people with speech impediments or read learning to speak all over again they often find a great success and sing it and it's just something about the music the tunes that go along with the lyrics to be able to sing that just gives a nice flow to the language guy so it's just great great success and just music therapy well another good example of neuroplasticity is learning a new language okay so when someone is learning a new language are the neurons that are responsible for language often connect with the sounds of the language or recognizing pictures associated with the language itself so for those who are out there who are fans of Rosetta Stone or other language programs that integrate sights and sounds with prominent nouns and verbs and common phrases

yeah well do these things are often learn more easily than just sound repetition alone and of course you know if you know a second language or third or fourth language you know that the best form of learning a language is a total immersion just being immersed in a new culture and you're learning not just the the dialect other language and then I'll just the words but you are immersed in the culture you're immersed in that context okay another example of neuroplasticity often include traveling or were exploring new places or creating art or other creative Pursuits writing poetry or whatever else and reading and getting plenty of rest and of course diet and exercise you know there's more to diet and exercise and just losing weight but it also supports healthy

brain activity course it increases blood flow and and you know it releases endorphins when R exercising and things like that fall it's all very very good and kind so it'll just take a few moments let's go back in time here and you know take a look at the how brain plasticity works okay and this is something that again it's it's ingrained in us we come into the world with this capacity this capability from day one okay because you know between the ages of 1 in the bout three years old our brains are just you know just rapidly expanding its neurons and its synapses or at the spaces that the microscopic spaces between the neurons and by age one according to the experts they say that we have about 2,500 synopsis

guy punches pretty impressive by age one but by Age 3 they say we have about 15,000 synapses okay so of course learning language and brain production and then cognitive skills are just taking off within the first three years of our lives so all the more reason for those of you who have little children out their babies infants Toddlers and sand and the light to read and to discuss and to get on pursue other like creative arts or allowing them to draw or something I just have these conversations with your children because they are little sponges and they are picking up everything but their cognitive skills are just making Leaps and Bounds

now it's interesting

bad even though by Age 3 we have about 15,000 synapses that is the space between these neurons but again experts come in and they say yeah but as we age we have about half that number

so are we just talking about an aging brain or or what is it but they say that you know the reason why you know as we get older we have about half of those synapses is because as we gain new experiences some of these connections that we have or strengthened and some are eliminated and they call this process of synaptic pruning okay where the the neurons that are used frequently you know develop stronger connections of course and those that are rarely or never used now they eventually die but the brain is able to rewire itself as well so by developing new connections and pruning away weak ones just of turn the phrase the brain is able to adapt to the changing environment

and this was something that the Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget stated that we can adapt to new challenges in our world because we are well equipped to learn

and then then you know perhaps you've heard of piace but he's best known for his constructivist theory which suggests that people actively construct their knowledge of the world based on the interactions between their ideas and their experiences and he really developed this Theory a little bit more through but he would call a simulation and accommodation

I this is something that we never lose as we get older now begins in childhood of course because while we need to learn about our worlds we need to learn new information, and once we have learned something let's say something in childhood we learn how to tie your shoes or we learn how to go to the bathroom Okay ourselves we learn how to dress ourselves okay this is new information and so this is this simulation that we just include this new knowledge and the skill into our brains however let's say that you are well skilled in tying your shoes but what do you do then when you come across a pair of shoes that do not have laces

okay you're a little kid and all of you you know you're proud of yourself cuz you learn how to tie your shoes but what's this your shoes don't come with any laces so what are you do so I would say that you know this is something where we just take those existing cognitive schemes of we know how do you know how to tie a shoe and but you know we just slide are foot into the shoe maybe with a shoehorn work do you know duster we will slide it in anyway but then once we've learned something new then we accommodate okay and it's not that we've so-called The Smiths what we have already learned but we're now allowing more room in our our brains to take on even more information okay so there is a classic example out there but say a magnet okay and for little kids they're fascinated with magnets they just don't know what to do with it so depending on

rage it's going to go under mouth right as everything else did you know they're going to taste it they're going to smell it they're going to throw it they just they have no idea what a magnet is used for okay but they're they're trying to figure it out with the knowledge that they already have okay which is everything is through the senses especially the mouth thanks well once they realize that they scared they're their mothers have to death by putting a magnet in their mouth and start switching it around and your mom goes in there and just grab it out of there their little Jaws they wipe it off and then mom shows them the proper use for magnets okay and it's like you can hang stuff up but again the properties of the magnet stick to metal eventually the kid figures it out just like we all did okay and then this what leads little kids to become very good at refrigerator art

and they're making all kinds of drawings and paintings and her mom you know what this on the refrigerator and they grabbed a little nugget boom there it goes very classic classic example of this assimilation accommodation and so this thought I said Jean Piaget was just fascinated I've how we are able to increase contrast knowledge but how we how our minds cognitively develop and just allow for new information so they stated we can adapt to new challenges in our world because we are well equipped to learn subject okay so if you would like to call in the number is 888-627-6008 and I'll be taking your calls after the break again you are listening to reclaiming authenticity and I am your host

after James Houck and I'll be back with you in 1 minute

okay well welcome back I am dr. James how can you are listening to reclaiming authenticity again before we pick up where we left off with brain plasticity and finding the power of our boys just want to say a word about next week show entitled it the spirit of mountains Spirit of mountains and again a lot of people thousands and thousands of people are fascinated by mountains you know and they're just awestruck of times through there or their beauty and majesty and a lot of people climb mountains enjoy hiking through mountains and camping in mountains and so forth and it's just amazing how connected or how much I should say we can find our connection to mountains so that's going to be a theme that's going to run throughout next week show so invite you to tune in Next Friday 3 p.m. Eastern Standard Time noon Pacific time

well early in the show we were talking about neuroplasticity with the brain's ability to heal or relearn new ways of carrying out normal functions at less I have been interrupted by trauma or disease and I mentioned that you know there's an old saying that neurons that fire together you can do this because they are wired together and this means that the more you run you didn't your neurons and just neural circuit as you well in your brain to Stronger that's circuit becomes and this is where we get the practice makes perfect and so all-in-all just means that the brain can read learn how to process sights and sounds and paste and touch and smells and and then how we talked and so forth and it also send signals to her muscles to tell us to move or to walk or

every game balance or whatever it might be okay so recommend another book here because in the second half of this show I really want to talk about how in finding our voice how can we really emphasize neuroplasticity how can we simply create changes in our brain by discovering our voice

well there's a great book out there again if you haven't read it I highly recommend it it's called boots brain by Rick Hanson it's it came out several years ago food is brain and Rick Hanson takes a look at or I should say he combines the insights that he came from a neuroscience with just looking at contemplatively practices or mindfulness practices and the theme that runs through this book is that how you can use your mind to shape your brain on terms of Greater happiness or love and wisdom and this this book that he wrote the latest research and it's it shows people how to stimulate your brain for more fulfilling relationships or a deeper spiritual life and so it doesn't nice job and just wedding together

Templeton practices and Neuroscience and you know certainly any kind of you know quiet meditation contemplation chanting and so forth has the potential of rewiring the brain and interesting leg when I deal with clients we often talked about contemplation and meditation cuz a lot of them are anxious and a lot of them just want to feel better which is not a bad place to begin but in just slowing down the brain and slowing down the anxious thoughts or the heightened anxiety or their you know Panic symptoms you know just by sitting with themselves and slowing their thoughts and focusing on deep breathing or no simple chanting or something actually has been shown to rewire the brain and you can

as I explained the clients especially kids like yeah we can teach are we can reach HR brains you notes in order to heal their stinking thinking okay we're a lot of kids just would get into this well I can't do anything right or you know I'm not pretty enough from not smart enough I'm not handsome enough I'm not strong enough and we make a list of all their stinkin Thinkin definitions or their perspective and of course giving them homework assignments because that's what I do not know his kids were very gracious but there is fascinated how you know just sitting with their thoughts and focusing on how they can change their thoughts

you know just not only begins to send you no changes to their brain and and rewire their brain even if they don't know everything there is no about the mechanics of the brain but they actually start to feel better they actually start to have more confidence in what they can do and they actually get in touch with who they truly are a not so much having to rely on somebody else's definition of who they think they need to be just an order to satisfy somebody else you know some authority figure in their life work or parents or or whatever but we also talked about that to that you know there's a lot of stinking thinking out there in the world and we have to be able to get a kind of sort through all this if you will or sit through it in order to you know what what really resonates within us what connects with us and what are some things that really bring us down and and

things are just just are no good and the best thing we can do is just to get rid of them okay before the Swiss psychologist was known for his assimilation and accommodation but there's also other learning theorists out there and I'm thinking of one one of my favorite learning theorists and that's Albert bandura and Jean Piaget looked at you know cognitive development Albert bandura looked at you know just behavior and that's why was the mind but the hills was more of you know how do we learn and end who are you know who are these people in our lives that that teach us these lessons and so forth and his quote that I I love and I use whatever I can is Lessons Learned as children are not easily unlearned

as adults

say it again Lessons Learned as children are not easily unlearned as adults

can I get that he's not saying that it's impossible okay that's not what he saying is but what he saying is it's going to take time and it isn't necessarily all negative and we just want to go there and say well as a kid I learned this or I was always taught that about myself or about something else or other perceptions and Society they're just not really life-giving and so against those messages as we're growing up or just you know or not Life Giving to us and we just like okay we need to get rid of those or we need to unlearn those messages okay not impossible but it will take time

put on the other side of this is you know the positive lessons that we have been taught like this is a strong work ethic and you know perhaps you know it just watching parents who've had a strong work ethic and you know what we're how to Value money and how to manage money or their time or something you know those lessons are not easily unlearned as adults and they stay with us and if these lessons are life-giving to us of course we're going to keep them died because of that point it's become habit and we know that to me when things become habit after while if it's going to be part of our characters going to shape us to a certain degree

and there's other theories out there that Focus also on on the human voice and just the power of the human voice and the changes that it makes on our brains and actually rewires our perspectives and I'm thinking about narrative therapy and narrative therapy in a nutshell is pretty much giving a person the time and the space to tell their story

without any judgments without any values attached to him like well that was a long story or you know I don't know if I'd like that story it doesn't matter if you like it or not it's the person's story ok but it's something that needs to be shared or as I like to say that every life is a story worth telling and every story worth telling is worth listening to in queso narrative therapy is very very popular then and just also very empowering and because think about it in your life when have you ever been encouraged to tell your story

kagwerks or whenever in your life were you allowed to tell your story and the freedom that that gave you perhaps and you know ahead of time and when she weren't given that permission but you know what I say now you are given that permission and you just you know if there's a lot to share their OK as well as either pain or something that was life-giving or whatever it is it's your story okay but given that permission or that access to be able to tell that story and different ways that's very life-giving it's a very empowering and again it's the that's how we use our voice or perhaps other people may find ways in which they tell their stories through painting or writing a book or music or or something again all of that is

part of brain plasticity

caves and maybe very very subtle but we are retraining our brains to tell our stories perhaps in healthier ways and this is something that do you know again by listening to ourselves and and I also highly recommend that you take yourselves telling a story because there's not I mean there there's so much more about telling our stories than just the words that we choose but it also depends on how we tell the story

okay what emotions are invoked an us What feelings come up what are things that we leave out because we think they're insignificant or they're just not part of our memory what things are we going through what lessons have we learned where are we still stuck and so forth and perhaps more importantly how does our family tell stories okay I know I've shared many times on this broadcast that I was probably about eight nine 10 11 years old something like that and I've heard my family stories over and over and over again for the point of nauseam okay that I just I was able to tell those stories without a script I could just like boom there let me tell you a story what happened way back when

but I caught myself one day telling stories the way my father told stories or my grandmother told stories and they told from a very unique perspective but you have also had a lot of emotion tied to it and I found it I was like I was getting caught up in those emotions as well and it was affecting me but when I was able to then this is many many many years later I was able to take a step back and just like why am I telling the stories from this perspective with such emotions and and the and the specific emotions in general but when I looked at that and I started to heal because I looked at some of the issues in my life I've also realized I started to tell those stories differently because

unbeknownst to me at the time I was rewiring my brain my perceptions had changed I was telling stories now from a much healthier place. From a place of pain and suffering in Wilderness but it was empowering and if it was from a place of of simple reflection of yes these things happened this is how other people looked at them but these stories do not sum up the end-all-be-all of who I am

the same thing is true and in your own family's lives you know the stories that you have learned over time just because you listen to them doesn't sum up the end-all-be-all of who you are and other words you're still writing that narrative you still have a story to tell it is still going on

well I'm so want to share with you just a powerful way in which the how we can change our perspectives and how we can rewire our brain just by discovering our voice and how we heal and how that just creates significant significant changes into who we think we are versus who we really are okay and the example that for me is just so classic and and I share this with my clients all the time for those who are struggling the desk and it's these underlying core messages that are found in addictions

underline core messages it doesn't really matter what the addiction is it could be a gambling addiction that could be over eating addiction it could be a sex addiction it could be alcoholism it could be you know some form of substance abuse addiction or or or whatever it is okay but there is underlined core messages that are just common and can be found and I believe any addictions which is key to not only taking away its power but also rewiring our brain as we find our voice as we share our voice as we reclaim that power that is ours because we came into the world with that already

so here's the the first core belief okay again remember put this into the context of addictions okay first core belief well I'm basically a bad unworthy person

dang I'm basically a bad unworthy person and just you hear that you hear the language and the feelings of Shame and guilt especially shame okay where there's a lot of feelings of inadequacy or failure or maybe there were experiences of humiliation or degradation you know or a lot of times with addictions there's this you know this secret that needs to be upheld you know what you have to hide you know who you are because you're so filled with unworthiness and so when you say I'm basically a bad unworthy person you're pretty much saying that you know people wouldn't really like me if they know if they knew deep down inside who I am

I know not what I do but who I am so that carries with it this shame language but as I said transformation can occur

and here's the transformation thought or The Voice

I am worth wild I am a worthwhile person and I do deserve Pride

I'm a worthwhile person and deserving of Pride that is very empowering you talk about reclaiming who you are you realize your value in dignity and worth and how the addiction has Rob that or how you surrender that perhaps to the addiction and that this role of secrecy in it well the core belief number two is no one would love me as I am

another words everybody would abandon me if the truth were known

or to put it another way everything that goes wrong is somehow my fault

now they are and the person spends the normous amount of time and energy creating this image of being in charge of life and in Need No need of help should say and significant persons who want to draw close to the one who is addicted they start to feel pushed away or useless or neglected you know but it just comes from this self-loathing language and then you can hear the shame that is just permeating this this core belief that no one would love me as I am however the transformation comes in and pretty much says well

I am loved and I am accepted by people who know me as I am

I am loved and accepted by people who know me as I am and you can just hear the empowerment in that transformation can taking back who you really are

typo in until the world of Addiction Services secrecy there's the self-loathing and a lot of shame that nobody understands me if they really knew me but that's why I do the drugs are or whatever it is so I can feel better

problem is it's a it's a black hole that can never be filled up because of this emptiness inside

however when a person is able to transform their thoughts transform their their speech you are retraining your brain to say now I am unloved and Ikes I am accepted by people who know me as I am

core beliefs number three is that my needs are never going to be met if I have to depend on somebody else

my needs are never going to be mad if I have to depend on somebody else and this person is is caught up in their addiction because the perhaps they feel unloved or unlovable and a lot a lot of anger and rage and you know internalized resentment or self-pity maybe suicide ideation depression thanks but there's really when you boil it all down there's this they have no confidence that others will love them and that I know these kinds of rules of being worthy and then being accepted only apply to people who are lovable okay but these people often get by from being you know calculating or manipulative or ruthless but it all comes back to you can't depend on anybody else

okay or here's a classic line that if you want something done right you're going to have to do it yourself but the transformation comes in when it says my needs can be met by others if I let them know what I need and then the last one whatever the addiction is sex drugs alcohol whatever it is that is my most important need

and again it's just this empty vicious cycle or a lot of cover-up lies and deceptions are made to conceal this kind of behavior but the transformation comes in and says well I have many healthy expressions of my need and care for others

so in just looking at these core beliefs in the year of the context of addictions and how to change not only you know how do I reseal from Yo nnn be able to have healthier perceptions about ourselves but also claiming and reclaiming our voice really rewires our brain to begin to see ourselves in much healthier ways and to be a much healthier relationships and it kind of interesting thing I'll leave you with this is that all these transformative statements certainly apply to our relationship with God because who knows us better than we know ourselves but yet loves us unconditionally

well I'm dr. James how can you have been listening to reclaiming authenticity I have enjoyed this hour with you that goes by fast but the tune in Next Friday 3 p.m. Eastern Standard Time noon Pacific time and until then take care and God bless

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