I recently had an opportunity to share my story with a fellow therapist and I was encouraged to write a little of this story about what I have achieved or attained from humble beginnings.

You may not feel worthy, you may not feel that you belong or have a right to belong. Let’s face it existing can be painful at times, but the great news is, you can, with a great deal of will, rise out of the ashes or your own darkness to manifest YOUR dreams.

How you came into the world, family stability, love, honour and presence is paramount to your journey in the world. For me it was a somewhat wobbly beginning and it wobbled for a long time. Sometimes I fell but somehow I kept getting up. My life was primarily living through the lenses and perception of others…am I loved, am I liked, am I wanted, am I enough?

Unfortunately I created my own negative self-beliefs from my perceptions and I projected these onto others, there was no trust and the world was not a safe place for me. In this place, it is easy to begin to hate yourself and others.

My school years are a bit hazy and to be honest there are not many happy memories from those years. Let’s get out of here and get to work I thought – determination is something I am known for and I don’t give up easily. I had a strong work ethic which was mirrored to me by a 7 day a week working mother. I was expected to help her both in her shop and with my siblings, to some degree my home life felt like hell. So starting work and travelling to Sydney from the Central Coast seemed like an easy transition with not so much responsibility. I had my own money and independence, life became lighter.

At 16 I met my husband to be, the rock and dependable yet somewhat free spirited man of my dreams. We married when I was 20, we had saved hard and our own home was built that year. Ah, security at last. Three daughters later and my husband starting his own business, we climbed many, many more mountains together to attain a lovely lifestyle and home, this took 20 or more years, nothing happens overnight. My relationship and our three girls, now women, meant and do mean everything to me.

My personal status in life was still troubling for me and these words started rumbling, “‘what about me?” I had over time struggled with anxiety, depression and low self-esteem, this took me on a healing journey, so many steps so many slides, so many loving supportive naturopaths, masseuses, homeopaths, therapists and many more courses later, I found my niche within a body oriented psychotherapy – Core Energetics, which proved to be very healing for me and led me to my ultimate destiny.

In 2000, I attended the first ever psychotherapists training in Core Energetics in Australia, this was to be a 5 year intense journey of healing myself and learning to be a psychotherapist, WOW!

This was and is my passion, my light was lit and my aim is to shine a light for those who despair and have lost their way – there is hope and there is a way!

Never give up! We are more than we ever think we are!

We are unique, we can inspire and above all we can learn to truly love ourselves and manifest our abundant dreams.

Some food for thought on your journey

+ Never be afraid to ask for help or to seek it, it is hard to go through life on your own

+ Be curious about yourself and who you might be, beyond your perceptions, sometimes we are blind to our magnificence

+ Challenge your beliefs as they have most likely been created very early on in your life and what you may have felt to be true might in fact not be true. This creates extra baggage you don’t need to carry

+ Blind spots in our perceptions are tricky as we quite often are unaware of our behaviours. Be willing and open to realise that our wounded inner child quite often runs our lives and our adult selves needs to take the reins

+ When hearts have been hurt and broken they are defended and sometimes not easy to reach, making want we truly want an impossible task, for example, how can we love if we don’t trust. So many of us are truly afraid to love, but to feel and heal our broken hearts is the most profound journey of opening our hearts, truly loving and connecting with self and others

Leslee Hughes is one of the most senior members of Core Energetics in Australia.  She is an experienced Body Mind Psychotherapist (Somatic Psychotherapist) who works in Sydney  & the Central Coast of New South Wales NSW. Leslee is a Member of the Psychotherapy & Counselling Federation of Australia and a Clinical member of the Counsellor’s and Psychotherapists Association. Leslee works one on one with individuals, couples, families and is able to do phone or Skype sessions. You can ring Leslee on 0407934499 or email mail@lesleehughes.com.au
Check out Leslee’s website for more details.