How to find inner support and believe that you can cope

Lecia celebrated New Year’s 2023 in Rome. Downstairs, people were celebrating and having fun, but Lena stayed in her room.

That night, she felt especially lonely. While others were making plans for the next year, she cried and repeated, “It won’t get any better” and “What next?”

There was constant misunderstanding and tension with her boyfriend. Their relationship began when he helped her escape a dangerous place, and they immediately moved in together. There was no intimacy between them. He felt safe, but she was afraid to leave because she didn’t believe she could cope on her own, having never been alone in her life.

Lena hardly communicated with her parents, and there were no close people nearby.

She couldn’t imagine how to escape this life. The thought of change brought even more fear. Lena didn’t believe she could cope. She didn’t feel she had the strength to even try.

Before this, Lena had consulted several psychologists. During the sessions, she vented, cried, and felt relief for a while. But her condition remained unchanged.

Lena searched for answers online and diagnosed herself with various illnesses. She thought everyone around her was living a normal life, but something strange was happening to her.

She didn’t let anyone know how bad she was feeling. She continued working and filled almost all her time with tasks. Inside, she remained anxious, empty, and feeling like no one needed her. Sometimes, Lena felt like she didn’t even need herself.

She blamed her parents for the way she grew up. She was angry at her partner because she wasn’t getting what she wanted from the relationship. She resented the world, which wasn’t working out in her favor.

Some time after New Year’s Eve, Lena was scrolling through Instagram and saw an advertisement for Pavel Bilsky’s free intensive course.

During the intensive, he asked the participants if they liked the life they were living.

“No. I don’t like it. How do you know?” Lena thought.

During the intensive, Pavel spoke about feelings of inferiority, relationship problems, and situations in which Lena recognized herself. She finally received an explanation for her condition.

At the end, the participants were asked to continue working in the program. Lena was hesitant. A stranger from the internet could easily turn out to be just another info-gypsy. The cost of the program was significant for her.

Then she thought: if the training doesn’t help, she’ll lose the money and then earn it back. But if she doesn’t go, nothing in her life will change for sure.

In February 2023, Lena entered the first stage of the SelfMade Man methodology.

She wanted to understand what to do with her relationship. But she felt the need was deeper: how to learn to live her own life and not wait for someone else to decide for her.

Before the program, Lena thought she was simply too demanding. During the practices, she saw for the first time how cruelly she treated herself.

Lena could scold herself for hours for any mistake:

“You’re a fool. You’re a loser. How could you do that?”

She was afraid of making mistakes, and that’s why she felt humiliated. There might not be a single dissatisfied person around, but inside, an accusing voice was already ringing.

In one of the tasks, Lena had to write down her positive qualities and answer why she could be loved.

She didn’t know what to write.

All that came to mind were achievements: I work hard, I strive, I fulfill my responsibilities, I achieve results. Lena could only recognize her value if she was useful and successful.

She simply didn’t know how to be treated well.

Pavel talked about the basic feelings of worthlessness, inadequacy, and guilt. Lena began to understand that she, too, experienced these basic feelings.

Before, she felt like she was alone. The program brought her a sense of relief: she wasn’t alone, there were many people who felt the same way, and most importantly, she realized there were reasons for her condition and that it could be changed.

At the second stage, “Parents,” she was able to see their full depth.

It turned out that her childhood pain was impacting her relationships and feelings of loneliness.

Lena remembered well her resentment towards her dad.

As a child, her father could get very angry and punish his daughter. At such moments, she felt he was against her and unsafe around him. As a result, Lena completely lost contact with her father.

She occasionally spoke with her mother by phone, so for a long time she thought their relationship was more or less normal. During the program, Lena realized that she actually had grievances she hadn’t noticed.

She blamed her mother for not teaching her how to be a woman, feel beautiful, and build relationships. She felt it was her mother who was to blame for her loneliness and insecurity.

Lena felt inadequate in her relationship with her mother. With her father, she felt unwanted. Later, she began to feel guilty for doing things for herself and living a life different from what was expected of her.

Lena realized that it wasn’t just her parents who had influenced her, but also school bullying. Afterward, she found it difficult to fit in with new groups. She expected to be rejected, ridiculed, or talked about.

That’s why she rarely opened up to people and tried to cling to those who were already there, even if the relationship hadn’t been intimate for a long time.

Working with the parents was difficult. Lena filled out forms one after another, cried a lot, and wrote until her finger hurt.

She went through different situations with her mother until she came to the one who was still sicker than the others.

At one point, she sat on the bathroom floor and burst into tears. The resentment she’d felt toward her mother for so many years revealed a longing for her.

At that moment, Lena said sincerely for the first time:

“Mommy, I love you. I miss you.”

Before, it was difficult for her to talk about love even to those closest to her. Now the words came naturally.

The next day, Lena called her mother. The conversation usually quickly turned to complaints: everything was bad, nothing was working, problems had cropped up again.

This time, Mom described her situation differently. She said there were difficulties, but they would overcome them.

Lena listened and did not understand where the usual conversation had disappeared to.

For her, this was the first noticeable result of the work. She felt that her relationship with her mother had changed, and with it, their communication.

I also became closer with my dad. He conveyed to my mom that he regretted his behavior. In his youth, he didn’t know how to raise children any differently.

Lena’s father began telling her more often that he loved her and was proud of her. After their first professional photo shoot, he wrote, “Daughter, you are so beautiful.”

Lena wasn’t used to hearing such words from him. She wanted to ask, “Dad, where have you been?” But with that thought came warmth and joy.

Now, when Dad comes and helps fix something, Lena is as happy as a child: “Dad came. Dad fixed it for me.”

She feels like she’s getting the closeness she’s been missing, and she no longer hides her love behind resentment.

Lena continued to work with her basic feelings at the third stage of Authenticity.