This month from the Kid Clinic: How to be Emotionally Self-Reliant

“Happiness isn’t in the future, it’s not somewhere else. It’s available right inside us, right now, all the time.”

As children, our parents help us with our emotional needs, such as, love, support, and comfort. We become dependent on this help throughout our childhood because our parents try their best to provide for all of our needs the best way they know how.

As we become older and want to gain more independence in our life we begin to go through different areas of self-reliance and learning about what it entails. Emotional self-reliance helps us to gain our emotional needs without depending on others. This does not mean we should not pursue or find others that give us emotional satisfaction. It simply means we should be aware of our emotional needs and help ourselves as best as possible and then seek further help if needed.

Suggestions to help ourselves to become emotionally self-reliant are:

• Finding a way to be grateful when you find yourself complaining.
• Finding a way to give when you find yourself being needy.
• Finding a subject to learn to help you to grow within.
• Take responsibility. If you find yourself blaming others, tell yourself that the other person is never the problem. You can believe the other person is the problem, but then you are reliant on them for the solution. If you believe that they aren’t the problem, then you look inside yourself for the solution.
• Learn to fix your own problems. If you are bored, fix it. If you are lonely or hurt, comfort yourself. If you are jealous, don’t hope that someone will reassure you … reassure yourself.

When we focus on these areas of emotional self-reliance our emotional self becomes important to us. We believe we can become independent from others and gain our own happiness not through others but through ourselves. When we are able to love ourselves and truly be happy with ourselves and our life we then are able to love those around us and be an asset to those in need to help them find emotional self-reliance as well.

Read more about Becoming Emotionally Self-Reliant by Leo Babaut here.

Anne K. Carlsen, PCSW, is a counselor at the Campbell County Medical Group Kid Clinic, a school-based pediatric clinic offering medical care and counseling services for Campbell County students in pre-kindergarten through 12th grade and their siblings ages 2 weeks and up. It is located at 800 Butler Spaeth Rd., across from St. Matthew’s Catholic Church. The Kid Clinic is open Monday-Friday from 8 am-5 pm. For more information, call 307-688-8700 or visit www.cchwyo.org/kidclinic. The Kid Clinic is a collaborative effort between Campbell County Health and Campbell County School District.