1. Get into the habit of challenging your thinking – especially when it falls into the same old repeated, negative patterns.

2. Keep a thankfulness journal – and deliberately look for the good things in your life.

3. Spend time with people who can see your strengths, and who make you feel good about yourself.

4. Keep some photos or mementos that remind you of your passions – so theses can help inspire you to love your life again.

5. Leave positive notes and quotes around your room, or inside your wallet, or on your desk, or phone.

6. See failure as a stepping stone that leads to further growth – and as something that is common, and experienced by us all.

Basket of Light, Sumpagno, Guatemala, 1989.

1. What is the evidence that says this thought is true?

2. What is the evidence that contradicts this thought?

3. Where does this thought come from?

4. Who has said this about me in the past?

5. What was their motivation at the time?

6. Should I allow that person to shape my thoughts and life?

7. What is the thought trying to tell me/ make me believe?

8. Why am I allowing limiting thoughts to bring me down?

9. How can I challenge this thought?

10. Am I ready to let this thought or belief go?

11. Am I ready to heal?

Shame is the deeply held belief that, at core, there is something wrong with me. So, no matter what I do, or how hard I try, I’ll never measure up and be good enough. Thus, I expect other people to reject me in the end, and deep down inside I reject myself.

If I have a shame based identity, I am likely to battle with the following feelings: - Feeling like a fraud

- Feeling like I have to cover up all the time

- Fear of being exposed for who and what I truly am

- Feeling powerless

- Feeling as if I don’t have, or deserve, a voice

- Wishing I could just disappear

- Feeling vulnerable

- Feeling very needy – and perhaps too needy, compared to other people

- Feeling like I always disappoint myself and others.