How To Take Your Mother Off The Brake Pedal Of Your Life

Many of my coaching clients grew up with a critical, controlling, domineering mother. They come to me because I’ve experienced this myself and know how challenging it can be to overcome on your own. Despite the challenge they face, I find my clients often make huge breakthroughs in their lives once they start addressing their mother issues both in Skype sessions with me and by taking assertive action towards their goals in the real world. When they stop living to just please their tyrannical mother and silence the inner critic they internalized as a result of their unhealthy emotional attachment to her, they can finally start living their own lives on their own terms.

In one session recently a client summarized his progress by saying:

“I’ve feel like I’ve finally taken my mother off the brake pedal of my life”

I am so inspired by many of my client’s rapid progress that I want to share with you some of the specific things that we’ve all found helpful for taking our mothers off the brake pedal of our lives:

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Acting Classes

Taking an acting class isn’t your traditional type of therapy, but it can dramatically boost your self-confidence. The great thing about acting classes is that they give you permission to expand the emotional boundaries of your personality, and you discover that you aren’t as limited as you thought.

Acting teacher Sanford Meisner described acting as “Living truthfully under imaginary circumstances”. When you learn to act, you confront those areas of your life where you’re inhibited, holding back, and living in-authentically. You also get permission to go into areas where your personality normally wouldn’t go, and realize that there are other authentic roles in life that you could play than the one you’ve been playing up till now.

Acting is particularly good at affirming your emotional nature as a human being. If you normally hold back on expressing how you feel, an acting class will snap you out of it. Even just being in an environment with creative people whose lifeblood depends on the ability to feel and express emotion is liberating.

If you want to meet women, an acting class is a great place to do it. You’ll work together on scripts and scenes where they’ll get to see a side of you that you probably don’t often show and may not even be aware of at the moment.… Continue reading…