Human beings are weird! I should know, I am a Psychotherapist – amongst other things. Even within what we might call the ‘normal’ range of thoughts, feelings and behaviours, we are a little bit odd – all of us, and I include myself in that. We have weird and wonderful ways of behaving, thought processes, and ways that we can unconsciously sabotage ourselves from doing the things that we want to do. If you want proof of our weirdness, just look out for the woman knitting out of her vagina on Facebook – in my opinion a slightly odd thing to decide to spend 28 days of your life doing, though obviously important to her! As I said, I have my weirdness too.

I have been pondering contentment and discontentment recently. I think as a species we are generally discontent. This is, of course, a terrible generalisation and will not be true for everyone. It also sounds a bit negative and it can be, however it is also the reason that we have evolved so much and that we have all the amazing things we have around us. Electricity was developed because someone was not content with a candle, medicines are developed because people are not content to watch others suffer and die, we have the internet (a mixed blessing you may think) because people were not content with accessibility of information. This, however causes us unhappiness as well. Having worked with people all my life I know that people are rarely content – we seek, we search, we want to improve ourselves, our houses, our jobs our income.

Take a moment to think about yourself – how would you score your level of contentment in these areas? From 1- 5, with 5 being completely content:

Your work            1 …….. 2 …….. 3 …….. 4 …….. 5 ……..

Your income        1 …….. 2 …….. 3 …….. 4 …….. 5 ……..

Your house          1 …….. 2 …….. 3 …….. 4 …….. 5 ……..

Your family          1 …….. 2 …….. 3 …….. 4 …….. 5 ……..

Your friends         1 …….. 2 …….. 3 …….. 4 …….. 5 ……..

Your body/fitness 1 …….. 2 …….. 3 …….. 4 …….. 5 ……..

Your self esteem  1 …….. 2 …….. 3 …….. 4 …….. 5 ……..

Of course this will vary depending on many things. Are all your sores 5’s? If they are, DO NOTHING! Stop reading, go and put your feet up and revel in your contentment!

The New Year is often a time when we re-evaluate and decide to do things differently, we look at the things we are not content with and make decisions – I am going to work less, lose weight, get fit, write a book, change jobs, move house, be happy, get therapy, manage my stress, and so on. How often do we not stick to them though? So what’s going on? Well, we know something is going on because if you continue like this, then it is likely to be a repeating pattern in your life. Anything that happens over and over again in your life is very likely to be to do with you – sorry about that! This is both good and bad news. The bad news is that you have to take at least some responsibility and could have done something about it before now. The good news is that if it’s you that’s doing it, it’s you that can stop and do it differently!

The Key is Self-Awareness.

All sorts of studies are coming out now about how self-awareness can help us in every area of our lives – self-esteem, relationships, stress, depression, anxiety and achieving goals we set for ourselves. I remember a boyfriend of mine at school saying that his Grandad had said to him ‘study hard and get your exams, once you have them no one can take them away from you ‘. It’s a shame I didn’t listen at the time – that’s another story! I think self-awareness is the same – once we have awareness, no one can take it away – not that it’s a finite journey by any means! Human beings, as well as being a little weird, are fascinating, creative, wonderful and inventive creatures. There is always more to learn about ourselves, how we function, what we unconsciously set up for ourselves, how we communicate and miscommunicate with others, and what our motives are for success and failure of things we set out to achieve.

My passion is about facilitating others in their self-awareness. Every area of my work as a Transactional Analyst is about that. It’s such a thrill for me when people experience those ‘ah-ha’ moments of realisation – ‘oh that’s what’s going on in my relationship’ or ‘that’s what’s going on for me at work’. Each time I think ‘and no one can take that away from you’ and each and every insight will be useful to that person in other areas of their life as well.

So, rather than setting yourself the same old goals that you haven’t historically stuck to, how about setting yourself a new goal for 2014? How about going on a journey of self-discovery and self-awareness (or starting a new chapter of this journey as many of you will be on already), the more you learn and understand the better it will be for you. That’s not to say that some realisations are not painful and difficult for us to face, however with awareness, we are empowered to make the changes we want and build on our contentment scores. Begin a new project called ‘Me’ and see how much you can discover about yourself by the end of the year. You are an amazing, fascinating, wonderful human being, full of contradictions and creativity. Yes I am talking to YOU! Your life has been a rich tapestry of experience and I wish you well on the rest of your journey.