I’m very pleased to say that this morning I saw one of my client for the last time. The reason being that this person first came to see me a few months ago because he was suffering from depression. We looked in depth of what was going on for him and discovered that his past was haunting him, leaving tracks of very limiting self-beliefs, low self-esteem and poor self- worth.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I started working with him asking what was depressing him, to pinpoint his issues concretely and find the right path of action. I also taught him how our language can have a strong impact on our inner world. For example, how saying “I don’t want to be depressed” can be detrimental. The unconscious mind doesn’t process negatives, so if I tell you “Don’t think of an apple” what did you just think about?! So when you keep saying “I don’t want to be depressed” your unconscious mind keeps hearing “I want to be depressed“. Scary, hey?!

As I talked about previously, our neuro-pathways are deeply engrained and depending on how we use them, they get reinforced or weakened. When you express what you want by actually stating what you don’t want, you’re actually involuntarily reinforcing what you’re trying to get away from.

So my client first learnt to change his language. We also worked on recognizing his limiting self-beliefs and on changing his negative self-image using processes such as reimprinting, submodalities, time-line work and a lot of coaching.

Today he confirmed that he was feeling brilliant and I did a quick scaling check-list to find out concretely what he felt had changed. He reported that his self confidence went from a 2 out of 10 to be now at a 9 out of 10, his self-worth is now at a 10, his self-belief at a 9, and all those limiting beliefs he first brought into therapy had totally disappeared. He’s learnt to forgive his parents and to leave the past behind. He’s taken actions to develop professionally, and as he’s recognized he’s got much more power in his world that he ever believed he had, he’s in the process of re-modelling his life to how he wants it to be.

So we both agreed that he doesn’t need me any more, and we’ve only arranged a follow up in a few weeks time to make sure he stays on track. I can’t describe the satisfaction I get when I witness this sense of accomplishment for a client. That’s when this job is the most rewarding: when your clients come to a session and have nothing else in their lives they want to change, because they’re truly and genuinely happy. What an amazing blessing to be able to give that to people for a living!