You are denying your authentic Self in favour of attachment, if you: 

1)  Believe you are responsible for how others feel and concern yourself with the emotional needs of others while ignoring your own. 

2)  Have poor boundaries and difficulty saying no for fear of disappointing others. 

3)  Have a rigid or compulsive over-identification with duty, role and responsibility. 

4)  Suppress or get nervous around negative emotions or avoid conflict at all cost. 

5)  Have a strong resistance to being in stillness with yourself. 

6)  Have an addiction to a behaviour, person or substance that temporarily “fixes” you. 

7)  Acknowledge that you are or have been a people-pleaser and seek approval. 

8)  Feel like an outsider always wanting to fit in but never quite doing so. 

9)  Feel like you must work to earn your place in the family, group, world. 

10) Identify as an overachiever, perfectionist or feel like an imposter.

11) Are overly concerned with how you appear to others and spend valuable energy to manage people’s perceptions of you. 

12) Have poor impulse control, overreact or feel reactive, anxious and on-edge. 

The above characteristics are some of the many early survival adaptations we carry into adulthood that are caused by choosing attachment and denying the authentic Self. If you answered “yes” to any of these you likely have a degree of attachment trauma that may be repressing your authenticity. It is not your fault, yet it is only you who can heal it. 

Compassionate Inquiry 

This is a process of self-compassion and self-curiosity where you ask questions and seek to understand yourself as a human being who has been through a unique set of circumstances with a unique set of reactions to those circumstances. It requires genuine curiosity of who you are, your motivations and how they came to be. It leads to compassionate acceptance of yourself in the present- this holy instant, just as you are. Genuine curiosity is the antidote to all judgement. Seeking to know and innerstand is the start of all healing. Real compassion is not simply about helping yourself to feel good, it is about bringing yourself to the truth which will liberate you by uncovering the blocks to your authenticity.

The 4 Key Questions of Compassionate Inquiry

Adapted from the work of Dr. Gabor Matē 

1) In important areas or relationships of my life where am I not saying ‘no’ where I might feel a ‘no’ but I don’t express it? 

2) What is my hidden belief behind my inability to say ‘no’? “I have to be strong”, “I can handle anything”, “I will disappoint”, “I will be a bad daughter, wife, friend etc.”, “They’ll think I’m a b*#ch”, “If people knew the real me they wouldn’t like me”, “I’m always the one who's blamed for how things turn out”, “I don’t want to make them angry, sad, hurt, frustrated...”, “That will make me look bad, ungrateful, incapable,...” etc. 

I don’t say no to (Who of what?)_____________________because I believe ____________________________________(belief, not theory). 

I don’t say no to___________________________________because I believe ____________________________________(belief, not theory). 

I don’t say no to __________________________________ because I believe ____________________________________(belief, not theory). 

3)  Is this belief true? Ask yourself for each example, would I say this about someone else who was in my same situation? (Watch for the double standard you have against yourself!)

4)  What is the impact of my not saying no in any of these areas? What is it costing me? (Physical, emotional, relationships with others, etc.)

Your task is not to seek for love but merely to seek and find all barriers within yourself that you have built against it ~Rumi