Your work, your children, your partner, your family, your friends ... everyone wants a piece of the pie of your life, and for you, that sometimes leaves little. Being lived is no fun, because it often prevents you from enjoying yourself.
Many people suffer from the feeling of being lived. They are lived by their work, by their family or even by their schedule. This can also refer to the feeling that you apparently live to work, instead of working to live[1]. In Germany, for example, this has become such a problem that managers and business owners are now legally prohibited from contacting their staff after working hours. This is also because German culture is more hierarchical than Dutch culture, so people there find it harder to say "no" to their supervisor.
The problem with being lived is often that although you are living, it is not according to your personal sense of purpose. In this sense, it does not matter if you are healthy or if you are limited by your health and therefore lived in some trajectory[2].
I am being lived by my family
Being lived by your family can occur in all families. However, if one of your children or your partner is ill or in need of help, this may increase the feeling of being lived (source 2).
Some time ago, I heard from someone that her husband, for example, did pretty little housework and care for the toddler because he had "important" work. In fact, if she had to go out for a day and he had to babysit and she came home, there was a good chance that the child would immediately ask for food because he would be hungry.
You can even feel guilty about how obligatory family time feels when you do fun things together[3].
This is not a convenient situation and it shows that sometimes you are lived by your family. Or even by school that expects you to be there as a lunch mom/dad or to make some contribution on other days.
In cases like this, it is important to set your limits and ask for help. For example, you can ask your partner for help, but if he is not home because of important work, you can also look to other family members (such as grandparents) or even neighbors. In extreme cases, you can also look to child care.
Perhaps your partner will even turn around when he/she notices other people getting involved in a problem that he/she is actually perfectly capable of solving.
It is also important then to look at your beliefs about family life and how you are supposed to function in it. This is something a hypnotherapist can help you with. For example, you may have beliefs about good parenting that may not make as much sense at all as they initially feel.
After all, if you are being lived and becoming unhappy as a result, what good does that ultimately do your family? What example does that ultimately set for your children as well?
A good conversation with your family can also be helpful, so you can find out, for example, what they value or what your partner values[4]. You may find out that what is important to you is not so important to them at all. This can give you more of a sense of freedom if this involves, for example, always having a tidy house.
By having these kinds of conversations from time to time, you can also find out that what is important to everyone can alternate. Perhaps eating together was abandoned for a while, but it is precisely by abandoning eating together that it has become clear to the rest of the family that this is important after all. Therefore, it is useful to repeat this from time to time, especially if something has been abandoned that is important to you.
Being lived through your work
That man who is not there because he has very "important" work is really just lived by his work. In cases like that, it is very important to find out for yourself what beliefs you have about work and whether you can stand up for yourself at work or whether it will have disastrous consequences.
Usually indicating that you need to take care of your child because the mother then has something namely something that executives will take into account and will not use against you.
You can also check how much priority you give your own life versus your work. Are you in your own top three? Because what is your work worth if it prevents you from building or maintaining a relationship with your child or partner? Or if you will be alone when you retire and your child may not even want to have contact with you?
For example, the man who had "important" work actually sat in all kinds of meetings all day. When you sit in meetings, you often quickly notice that things can be done more effectively and efficiently. One way to get this done is to give the meeting a clear hard deadline, such as 20 minutes[5]. If you then have a meeting job, you'll finish faster and be able to spend more time on yourself or your family and thus not be lived with.
A hypnotherapist can help you practice how such a meeting goes and what to say if you notice people starting to talk about topics that are not important.
I am being lived by my schedule
If you have set priorities, you may also still feel like you are being lived by your schedule. That family time you had scheduled to be cozy together then doesn't feel cozy but obligatory. It just seems like spontaneous fun things don't happen anymore and that can detract from the things you do, when they might be fun if you did those things spontaneously.
There are people who swear by a good agenda. For example, I know someone who already has her schedule full for the next two years. She likes this and for her this is not a problem.
But you are not her, and not everyone likes to live a somewhat predictable life. Thereby, you may also just need a day of rest and you may go absolutely crazy with all the obligations in your schedule.
Then again, if you live with that schedule, perhaps you could also schedule a "spontaneous" day. Who knows, maybe even every Sunday; it's not for nothing that many religions have 1 day of rest per week and that this is really meant to be a day of rest and not a social-life-in-preservation day. This is a day where you don't plan anything and on the day itself you see if you are going to be lazy all day or just get an impulse to do something fun with someone. That way you are still a little bit lived by your schedule, but at least on those days you have no obligations.
Strengthening your ego and living your own life
In addition to practical solutions, standing up for yourself is important if you are currently being lived by your family or work. In fact, the reason why you haven't done so until now may very well lie in the fact that you have too low a self-image or too little self-esteem. You are worth your own time too.
With regression , you can find out where this feeling of always having to be ready for others but not being ready for yourself comes from and possibly change it. By changing a certain outlook on life, you can already do a lot to pull off unconscious beliefs or barriers.
In addition, building your self-confidence and assertiveness is therefore important.
With hypnosis, visualizations can help you build self-confidence. In addition, repeating suggestions can also be helpful to gain more self-confidence and assertiveness. These can include suggestions such as:
"I can do anything."
"I get to choose for myself."
"I can only take good care of others if I also take good care of myself."
"I am only long term employable if I take good care of myself."
"I get to nitpick."
These are just examples. Depending on your beliefs and issues that make you feel like you are being lived, you may receive other affirmations or suggestions from the hypnotherapist.
Need help to stop being lived? Then visit bestetherapeut.co.uk.
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Or enroll in one of our seminars or trainings. There you'll get right to work on techniques to make other people feel good.
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