If you want to improve and transform yourself, the first step is to become aware of the weaknesses which may be holding you back and preventing your evolution. These weaknesses might be your need for security, your tendency to escape into fantasy, your hunger for approval, your longing for the past, your fear of the future, or your investment systems.

Annalisa Cochrane’s emotions are fluctuating and unstable. Although she has the ability to detach herself from her emotions to analyze and observe them, this tendency sometimes prevents her from truly engaging herself in emotional terms and may act as a defense against any emotional impact. This is the reason why she subject all her feelings to an intellectual interpretation rather than yielding to them. It is also the reason why she might falter, hesitate, contradict herself and seem to say both yes and no when she has an opportunity to commit herself emotionally. She should make a conscious effort to overcome this unconscious conditioning which may be related to her childhood. She must first learn to observe and assimilate other people’s feelings instead of rejecting them. This exercise will teach her to understand her own reactions and affects better.

To trust yourself better and gain self-assurance, the first thing you must do is learn to say no. Once you are capable of saying no to others, you can say yes to your life. You must develop your awareness of all the things you love and feel positive about, as well as all the changes you hope to make in order to enjoy your life more. This is the foundation that will support you, the inexhaustible source and center of the transformation of your personality. Infantile anxieties which arose in childhood when you were helpless may be obstacles to your evolution. Sometimes they actually prevent you from daring to confront challenges you would be altogether capable of assuming now! One of the reasons you yield to these childhood fears so readily is that they procure a feeling so familiar to you that, although it is negative, it is a reassuring part of your identity. However, the more often you reinforce this complex by yielding to that feeling, the more unaware you become of your true emotional state. The irrational childhood fears have also reinforced your pessimistic tendencies. It is difficult for you to believe in the sunny side of life because of the pernicious little voice inside you that claims you don’t really deserve all this goodness. This side of you could undermine your vitality and force you to compensate or flee from reality. In doing so, you limit your power to bring about a positive change in yourself or your life.