In my German coaching blog a comment was made that our past is a resource. What do you think about it? Do you see your past as a resource? I thought about it and came to the conclusion that I see my present as a resource. My past can show me something about resources that brought me to the present I am now living it. My past is over, I have no direct access to it. Sure, I can analyze it and even travel back by rewinding my life’s movie – something I propose in my new e-book as a self-coaching tool. Is there a link between my past and my present that supports me to create something new now? With this question on my mind I looked at my bookshelves… and I found an answer.
Reinventing Your Life by Jeffrey E. Young and Janet S. Klosko was interesting and fascinating to read. In Germany it was also a bestseller shortly after release. This book is about life traps and how we can deal with them. Our life traps developed in our past during childhood and they do influence many of us today if we are not aware of them or do not know how to face them.
I warmly recommend this book to people who feel that repeating and self-destructive patterns rule their life. One chapter is “Please don’t leave me!” – The Abandonment Lifetrap, another is called “I’ll never get the love I need” – The Emotional Deprivation Lifetrap”. What I like best are the clear and frank examples from clients’ lives, the checklists and the explanation how those lifetraps emerge.
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I’m reading that book right now. I had no idea it was such a bestseller in Germany, how interesting. I wonder why that is.
Reading it inspired me to write a post called Choosing Intimate Partners: To Repeat or Not to Repeat?. In Reinventing Your Life, they really advocate avoiding and overcoming your lifetraps. But meanwhile some other theories suggest that we instead engage in and master them. It’s a tough thing to know which to do.
Anyway, it’s something we should really discuss more because these repetition patterns play such an important role in our lives. Thanks.