Self Confidence Coaching and Counselling
Or, how to feel better about your self
By Jim Byrne and Renata Taylor-Byrne
Copyright (c) 2018, Jim Byrne and Renata Taylor-Byrne
Update: 16th March 2020: For the duration of the Corona-virus (COVID-19) crisis, I will be available for Telephone Counselling only. I will not be available for face-to-face counselling
I will be addressing my normal range of problems and issues, and, in addition, I will be happy to help you with any health anxiety you might be feeling.
You might have come to this page because you are feeling bad about yourself; about your performance in the world; about your physical appearance or your sense of ‘who you are’.
The ‘self’ is a very strange and tricky concept. It is highly emphasized in the west and downplayed in the east.
But your self is perhaps best thought of as having two major aspects:
1. Your physical self; and:
2. Your narrative self – or your story about who you are.
But there is also ‘who you are’ for other people – how they see you and relate to you.
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Then there is the complication of your sense of ‘self-efficacy’, or performance competence. For example, if you are due to make a presentation to your team in work, or a group of fellow students, in college or university, then you might be feeling a lack of confidence because you are very anxious that things may go wrong. This may be because you were rewarded when young for being timid; or you have been browbeaten into passivity; or you have not practised the skills you need in order to make a success of this presentation; or because you are too perfectionistic in the standard of performance you have set for yourself; and so on.
You might also be involved in a relationship which is bad for you; a relationship with somebody who actively or inadvertently undermines your self-belief, or self-esteem.
If you are feeling bad about yourself, or have any of the problems listed above, then we can help you to think, feel and act better, meaning that you are more self-supporting. (The only proviso we operate is this: If you want to live The Good Life, then you have to live A Good Life – a moral life; within the law).
We can help you to manage your body-brain-mind for a more confident future.
You can contact either of us for an initial session, at our normal fee, to see if we would work well together.
Contact one of us today:
Either: Renata Taylor-Byrne, who has decades of experience of teaching self-confidence and self-assertion in a further education college, with mature students.
Email: renata@abc-counselling.org
Telephone 01422 843 629
Web page: https://abc-counselling.org/life-coaching-hebden-bridge/
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Or: Dr Jim Byrne, who has twenty years’ experience of counselling individuals with all kinds of emotional problems related to their self-concept and their relationships with others.
Email: drjwbyrne@gmail.com
Telephone: 01422 843 629
Web page: https://abc-counselling.org/counselling-hebden-bridge/
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Background theory
Human beings are delusional beings, who see the ‘world’ through stories stored in their heads. We do not, and cannot, look out through our eyes and see ‘reality’. We are always interpreting what happens to us.
Highly prizing the ‘self’ is a relatively modern idea, emanating to a large extent from the USA, and especially from Carl Rogers and Fritz Perls, at Big Sur, in California, in the 1960s onwards.
Originally, that emphasis on the self, and the value of the self, and the struggle to find the self, was meant to be liberational for the individual seeker. However, the idea was subsequently taken over by the advertising industry to serve the interests of commercial and industrial sellers of products.
Today we are bombarded with ideas of what we must buy, what we must possess, what we must flaunt, in order to be a ‘cool self’.
Individuals who do not have all those things that are highly rated in the advertising that gets presented on TV, in newspapers and magazines, and so on, now feel inadequate. They feel shame if they do not have the right kind of mobile phone (cell phone). They feel embarrassed if they do not have the latest kind of hairstyle. They feel self-hatred if they do not look the ‘right’ shape, or height, or have the ‘right’ skin type, or kind of eyes, and so on. They feel envy, jealousy and anger towards those others who do have all the ‘cool stuff’, and the ‘smooth moves’, etc.
All of these obsessions with being the kind of ‘self’ that is portrayed in the movies, and in advertising, is destroying natural self-confidence.
If you did not feel inadequate, ill equipped with ‘goodies’, you would feel much more self confident. If you were not measuring yourself against others, you would feel a natural self-confidence. If you knew how to control your perceptions and emotions, so that the worst you ever felt, when faced with threats or dangers to your self concept, or loss or failure to get and keep the right kind of ‘stuff’, was mild concern, a little disappointment, some irritation, or even a little (passing) sadness, then you could bounce back to happiness and self-confidence very quickly!
We can help you to learn how to do that –
# to be self-confident in a world which is determined to make you feel bad about yourself so you will buy all the ‘stuff’ that is alleged to solve all your problems.
# to be self accepting no matter what ‘stuff’ or ‘features’ or ‘traits’ you happen to have, and no matter whether others consider you to be ‘cool’!
# to learn to love yourself exactly the way you are right now, with all your current traits, features, and ‘stuff’.
# to feel loved and accepted – to feel securely attached – to some significant others.
# to improve your self-narrative – by exploring your story about who you think you are, and who you would like to be.
# and/or to be less perfectionistic and more performance-competent – by exploring your standards and goals, and by working on role-playing new performances in the safety of the counselling room.
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Contact one of us today:
Either: Renata Taylor-Byrne, who has decades of experience of teaching self-confidence and self-assertion in a further education college, with mature students.
Email: renata@abc-counselling.org
Telephone 01422 843 629
Web page: https://abc-counselling.org/life-coaching-hebden-bridge/
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Or: Dr Jim Byrne, who has twenty years’ experience of counselling individuals with all kinds of emotional problems related to their self-concept and their relationships with others.
Telephone: 01422 843 629
Web page: https://abc-counselling.org/counselling-hebden-bridge/
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# Dr Jim Byrne’s Counselling and Psychotherapy Division
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# Renata Taylor-Byrne’s Coaching/Counselling Division
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# ABC Bookstore Online: Self-help books to heal your life and grow your mind.***
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ABC Counselling and Psychotherapy, Hebden Bridge 