I think I am going to try a few sessions with a life coach

Okay, so here are a few random thoughts...

• About every nine - twelve months I go through a little flurry of personal growth work. The last major flurry was Enneagram work this past Spring after Europe to help me deal with the envy I was experiencing. I think I am ready for another round.
  
• For the past several months I have been struggling internally with major acceptance issues. You may have read in my posts that I am "ready" to move on to whatever is next. I think one of the things I am ready to move past are these deep needs for acceptance.
  
• I participated in a half hour call with a personal-life coach last weekend. Two outcomes I believe were significant were: one, I realized for someone who is so feeling based, how much time I spend thinking about my feelings and not actually being in touch with them and two, I realized there is still a sad little boy inside me who wants to be loved.
• For whatever reasons, I believe I need to be in touch with that sadness before I move on to my next stages in life. I believe getting in touch with the sadness will help me move through this stage of high need for acceptance.
• At the same time I think having a child will also help move the focus off of me and onto someone else - I know I am ready for that. But I wonder why the universe has yet to bring that into our lives - maybe I am not ready for a child and the universe knows it? Hmm...
• In the meantime, I am going to work with this personal-life coach to work on some of these deep feelings I am not in touch with.
• Also in the meantime I am going to spend some time researching what we need to get our house adoption ready. No need to wait on that.

Okay, so let me give you two examples of approval mindsets I struggle with which having a life coach will hopefully help me work through because I cannot seem to on my own:

1. I didn't go mountain bike riding this weekend mainly because I have been sick. So, I struggle internally, feeling guilty and all "tight" inside about not riding. The reason is because I think if I don't ride I won't be fit and I won't lose weight. If I don't lose weight then when I am in Costa Rica and take my shirt off people will think I am fat and if people see pictures of me with my shirt off they will think I am fat. If people think I am fat, they will not love me, they will not accept me. If I am not accepted and loved then I am worthless. That is right, worth nothing. Zip, zilch. So, because I have this deep insecurity inside of me I believe being out of shape, which comes from not mountain biking, makes me worthless.
   
2. After our work Christmas party several members of my team went out for drinks. I didn't go and have felt a lot of angst about my decision. I know it seems silly but I have this view that my coworkers, especially the members of my new team, are all kind of hip and cool and are all buddy-buddy with each other. So, I worry that me not going out for drinks with them means they will think I am not hip and cool. If they think I am not hip and cool then I won't be part of all their inside jokes at work, I won't get additional invites to go have drinks and overall I won't be viewed as a cool person and therefore not viewed as a friend. If I am not viewed as a friend it means that people don't like me. If people don't like me then it means I am flawed and unlovable and worthless.
   

So, why I want to work with a coach is because the root of both of these issues is a FEELING. A FEELING of being worthless. A sad little boy who thinks he is not worthy of love.

I can on my own and with friends work through all the thoughts about these issues. Heck, right now I can totally see all of the counterpoints, all the logical reasons why what I have laid out above isn't true. But, the FEELING behind it, the sad little boy who wants to be loved and approved, I can't just think my way out of that.

But, even if I work through the thoughts about these two particular issues there will be others that pop up. These thoughts are just symptoms of a deeper issue. As a matter of fact, the two situations I laid out above aren't really even the problem. They are just represent how the problem of a FEELING of a lack of acceptance manifests itself in my life.

I don't know if a life coach can solve all this. I am sure even if this issue is solved there will be others which take its place. I am scared this is all too self-focused like usual. Part of me thinks that if I am really ready to move on than I wouldn't even bother with a life coach, I would just invest all my energy into figuring out how to get a child.

But more than any of those things it FEELS like the right thing to do right now.