Your Beliefs And Mindset

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When was the last time you questioned who you are and what you stand for? The chances are it was quite a while ago because, like most people, you take yourself for granted. Few of us think in enough depth about our beliefs, yet they are essential to our very being. Before embarking on a course of personal development, we need to confront our beliefs head on.

A belief is a feeling of conviction about something specifically related to yourself.

Beliefs have a direct impact on our character and behaviour. We can divide beliefs in to two simple categories - positive and negative. A positive belief leads to positive actions like setting goals and targets. Negative beliefs are associated with negative behaviours - like self paranoia. Beliefs are activated by different personality traits. In the case of negative beliefs, the inner critic is a major contributor.

The little voice we hear in our head sometimes telling us we are no good is what life coaches refer to as the inner critic. An inner critic is fine and actually important in small doses. However, if the balance becomes upset, our inner critic can become a detrimental force. All the hard work you may have put into building yourself up can be wiped away in an instant by an unchecked inner critic.

On the other hand, we have the inner coach. This is the voice of confidence and encouragement. It is the voice of hope and the gateway to success. Your inner coach is the part of you that checks for solutions not problems. The inner coach provides you with inspiration and vitality. When it comes to building success, your inner coach is the voice to listen to.

You should decide which of the two voices are the loudest in your mind. Are you your own coach or your own worst enemy? It is far easier to criticise than to make something which is why the inner critic tends to be the most prevalent in ordinary people. Extraordinary people have that little bit extra. Extraordinary people have a finely tuned inner coach.

All you are doing by developing your inner coach is making your mind work for you. Think for a second about how incredible the human brain is. It is more powerful than all the worlds computers combined. The brain contains within it almost limitless potential. What a shame it is, therefore, to use it against us rather than for us! We all have the chance to be extraordinary, yet so many people sit in the doldrums because they are unable to harness the latent power of the mind.

The mind can waste a lot of energy on detrimental beliefs. Remember that a belief is not a fact! You should not think that what you believe about yourself today is necessarily true. People have had some crazy beliefs over the years. For instance, entire cultures have developed on the belief of the world being flat, or that gods live up in the sky. Unless you have taken the time to explore yourself, you run the risk of holding some unhelpful beliefs about yourself. But where do beliefs come from?

Some of our beliefs originate in our childhood. The opinions of our elders shape our self image in childhood. Therapists spend a lot of their time unravelling problematic self images of people that begin in childhood. It is amazing to think that our childhood never really leaves us. Instead, it becomes buried to the very core of our being. Life is a process of change and development. However, without being aware of the things that have made us who we are there is little chance of us controlling this change.

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Online Counselling

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Online counselling offers people anonymity, affordable counselling services along with the ease of receiving the services at the geographical location they are placed in. Some people find it difficult to meet a counsellor face to face either individually or in a group. In a small town it can be embarrassing to be seen parking outside a counselor's office or walking into one. So online counselling can be a good choice for them.

There are a few websites which offer professional counselling services online. For those people who are concerned about the cost of the counselling, they find that online counselling is affordable. Through online counselling you can be connecting with a qualified counselling psychologist who will assess you and help you to work through your various problems. The setting is one wherein you can relax completely and so online counselling can at times be more successful than face to face counselling.

At the start of the online counseling, a
complete assessment of the counselee is done. There are different options for this. For example you may be asked to complete a questionnaire and then take part in a chat session for the intake to be completed. Today, many online counselling programs work via web cams. This allows a face to face interaction to take place and for a bond to be established between the counsellor and counselee.

Cognitive behavior therapy is one of the most effective forms of counselling offered online. It involves making positive changes in your own behaviors through modifying your beliefs and thinking patterns. With Online counselling in cognitive behavior therapy, you not only identify the triggers to your behavior but also learn how to modify your reactions to them thus making the choices which allow you to make an optimum adjustment to life circumstances. You can then incorporate the new behaviors in place of the old behaviors. The more you do this consciously, the faster the new patterns of behavior will become part of your repertoire of behaviors.

An important area where online counselling can be useful is stress therapy. We all suffer from some type of stress but sometimes stress can be overwhelming. No one can avoid stress but one can learn how to manage it. Too much stress can lead to a variety of concerns including fatigue, irritability, insomnia, depression and various psychosomatic illnesses. Stress can hurt you both physically and emotionally so it is very important to seek counselling once you find that you are unable to deal with it on your own.

Stressors are unique to an individual. What causes stress to one person need not cause stress in another. Being able to identify what your unique underlying stressors are is a step in the right direction. Then you would then need to take the assistance of a counsellor to learn new techniques to effectively handle your stress. Taking the assistance of an online counsellor you can learn how to effectively manage stress from the privacy of your own home or office.

Both cognitive behavior and stress therapy are often completed online. The results are excellent too which is very encouraging. Online counselling is growing at an unbelievable rate. Nowadays more and more people are using it to get the help of qualified professional counselling psychologists to deal with different personal and emotional issues.

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Counselling In Mental Health

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Ultimately, counselling is (or should be) about learning and practicing how to HELP YOURSELF. A counsellor's job or task is to help others to help themselves! A misconception among general society about counselling relates to advice giving. A counsellor should only give advice in certain or particular situations or under certain circumstances such as if somebody is pointing a dealy weapon to their own head (the counsellor could rightfully use "shoulds" then in such circumstances). Generally, for a counsellor to give advice is going against the principles of what counselling is about or intended to be (if used correctly) A core idea of counselling as a general rule of thumb is for the client (or person receiving counselling) to grow in him or herself and become self-sufficient as far as handling/managing current and future problems, NOT to become dependent on a counsellor or

ANYBODY else to make decisions for them (such as advice giving) which will only hinder or stalemate personal growth and resolution of problems. The term "therapist" may loosely be used as a broad term covering counsellors and more recognised psychotherapists. Speaking in loose terms, a physiotherapist, a diversional therapist, a pastoral counsellor, an art therapist, a hypnotherapist, a counsellor, a psychologist, a behaviour therapist and many others could all be loosely termed or grouped as therapists. A constable and a sergeant are both police officers but one more highly recognised and a similar comparison could be made between a counsellor and a psychotherapist. An interesting point to note also is that studies have revealed/concluded that paraprofessionals (those with somewhat minimal training such as those who have only had a few hours of training in communication skills such as active listening, using reflective skills, empathy and the like, and others such as college students and those with no formal qualifications in "therapy") can obtain very positive results in working with those presenting for treatment of general life problems. In other words, many people can be aided in a "therapeutic" relationship or atmosphere with non-professionals (non-therapists) as much as certain professional people who are therapists. It's not always the case such as in adults who present with more disturbing issues, but the point is that helpers may not absolutely need to be an "expert therapist" in order for others (generally speaking and in general situations) to reap benefits of personal interaction in dealing with general life issues. Certain types of theories and those used in many forms of counselling state and believe that humans have the capacity for self-healing with general problems or issues in life. But it is ideally suitable to associate with others when we need to whether we are facing depression, anxiety problems, relationship problems, addictions and so-forth and a part of the healing package or the "ingredients" that are required for many of us to overcome various problems is to communicate ( in one way or another) with paraprofessionals, non-professionals AND sometimes professional people in whom may come in the form of a warm, empathic and accepting counsellor.

How might a counsellor help? What benefits are there in seeing a counsellor? How DO they help? What role can they play? Many questions may be asked and these seem to be some common ones. A counsellor may be able to help in various ways and some of this will be the actual approach that they use ("approaches" here meaning an actual school of thought as in different types of psychotherapies). Counsellors are generally trained at least in certain aspects of psychotherapy (such as Person-centred therapy developed by Carl Rogers) and will generally have certain skills not only in areas such as communication skills, conflict resolution, portraying a congruent attitude and demonstrating unconditional positive regard and so-forth, but they generally are able to utilise skills of particular techniques used in various forms of psychotherapy. Counsellors may not be as skilled or have specific expertise skills as somebody such as a psychologist who is trained in helping those with mental health problems, but they still do have a fairly large repertoire of "things up their sleeve" that they can use for helping to work with others ( remembering that counselling is or should be about helping others to help themselves). Most counsellors are renowned or have a reputation of being very warm-hearted people. It may be pleasantly surprising to discover some of the benefits in talking to a non-judgemental, empathic, listening, open-minded, genuine or "real" person as a climate of such an environment in such cases can contribute to personal growth and/or other positive aspects that may be so fruitful in fighting or facing the battle of mental health issues.

A counsellor can help by using certain skills, by actually wanting to listen to you and in other ways such as helping you to become more aware of parts of yourself, using your own inbuilt skills and abilities, practicing certain skills and techniques, right though to simply offering you a non-judgemental attitude and a caring relationship, helping you to find suitable other people who have specialist skills in helping in all sorts of different areas, helping you to vent feelings and thoughts which in itself can be therapeutic, dealing with unresolved issues of the past and becoming more fully-equipped to maximise the value of the present and putting things into place for future problems or challenges, assisting you to challenge negative self-defeating beliefs, reconstruct healthy, rational or adaptive ways of thinking and much, much more. Counsellors may not be psychiatrists or have quite the in-depth knowledge of mental health issues and disorders, but they can offer aspects of healing in oneslf to a lot of people with various mental health problems.

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