CLT Practitioners' Sharing: Rebuilding Confidence through CLT

Our son, freshly graduated from university, netted his first job in Singapore. He was over the moon with joy as it was not easy for a Malaysian to find a job in competitive Singapore. Initially, he coped well with his job and was confirmed within three months. Then, the pressure and heavy demands of his job came swiftly and he could not cope. His downhill slide begun when he came home to celebrate Chinese New Year. He was permitted to work from home, so to speak. One of the bosses called up and berated him severely over something he missed out. No proper training was provided, he had to learn on the fly.

One of our son’s issues is that he is not good at multi-tasking. This job was very demanding especially so when his department used to have more than 10 staff but dwindled to only 3 bosses and him plus an intern. He was getting instructions left, right and center, juggling with demanding timelines. He thought that in order to cope, he stayed back late into the night, working on weekends, without getting rest.

One of the key Principles of CLT is Self-love, loving oneself first so that one can then help/care for others. Since he maxed out on whatever energy he had, mental clarity was out of the window – all of his energy was externalised to meet the demands of his job and he could not see that he needed to pull back to conserve energy and see how to tackle the situation. Over time, it affected him emotionally – FEAR. His fear loomed so big that he was constantly experiencing mental fog and it became a viscous cycle between having more mental fogs and growing fear which drew him down an energetic spiral.

This fear became crippling to the extent that when he reported to work in the morning, he had anxiety attack when he switched on his computer and saw the never-ending list of e-mails, each screaming for attention. He made mistakes which unbeknownst to him, was recorded by his senior boss.

As he could not cope, his second performance review was very bad. During the session, his senior boss showed him a two-page report, recording each ‘small’ mistake he made e.g., not replying e-mails fast enough. (When he shared with me, I told him that this was a set up to sack him). His immediate boss counselled him to learn not to take things personally but instead, focus on his work. After this review, his confidence plummeted. He was completely shattered and luckily, he phoned me. I gently guided him, suggested that he does the CLT energetics to stablilize his traumatised mind. After that, he felt calmer. By this time, he had already worked for 9 months. After family discussion, I strongly suggested to him to resign and return home to recuperate and build back his energy. He had a lot of fears: fear of being sacked from his first job, fear of resigning from his first job under one year of employment, fear of looking bad in the eyes of his family, fear of looking bad to his friends, etc..

When there is fear, there is no room for love, love for oneself/no self-love. He kept on pushing himself but fear consumed him. This led to mental fog, he could not see that he needed to pull back and rest in order to do his work properly. What then, is Truth (the second principle of CLT)? Having the confidence to call it quits when he knows that deep down, this is not the job for him. There are better jobs out there for him.

Finally, when we told him to resign and that we shall back him all the way, he felt a huge, heavy load slid off his shoulders, could breathe easier, calmness entered. When his fears went away, his energy returned and he regained his confidence. Learning when to pull back, to step back and conserve one’s energy is vital to mental clarity. He sent in his letter of resignation. While serving his last month there, he found that he could cope as he was no longer worried about any mistakes he made (not huge mistakes). Since he left that place, he found out that quite a few experienced people joined the company but also left quite quickly. This confirmed our suspicion that the gruelling pace of work there, kills the staffs’ souls.

He came home, recuperated and recharged his energy doing CLT energetics, mind cleared and he found his second job in Singapore. He is happy and more able to handle his new job.

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