WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?

I TRY TO BE MYSELF

The secure self: You do your best to be yourself at all times. To you it’s possible and desirable to express your whole personality. You’re not ashamed to admit limitations or talk about your faults, and have no difficulty in recognising your qualities or celebrating your strong points. In your mind this is the only way to live. This makes you a very pleasant and secure friend. Your behaviour reassures those around you who doubt themselves, while encouraging them to seek their own role and direction in life. With you, things are simple and natural. This is the best situation for everyone. Well, almost… Be careful of your discreet self-satisfaction, which can cause psychological immobility. Although it can create stability and be beneficial to your emotional wellbeing, your attitude of self-tolerance is not quite so good for your personal development. Discomfort and frustration can be powerful and necessary catalysts for change in life. Being content is one thing, but stagnating is quite another.

HOW HAS YOUR FATHER SHAPED YOU?

You feel that your father left you with a legacy of shame. Without a strong sense of stability in the home you are likely to have grown up feeling insecure and lacking in confidence. You may have felt reluctant to get close to others for fear that they will discover the real you, and you may be haunted by low self-respect. From time to time you may have struggled with self-destructive tendencies. With the desire to emancipate yourself from your father and everything he represents to you, over time you may have built up armour, viewing life as a series of battles. Ambitious and competitive, you tend to be hard on yourself and critical of others. You are likely to wrestle most with the courage to transform feelings of powerlessness and bitterness into hope and an affirmation of yourself and life.

and

you just broke your child

WHO IS YOUR INNER CHILD?

THE MODEL CHILD

Your inner child is very well behaved.You are respectful of others and you are careful never to contradict anyone, and not to offend anyone. You do what you can to please others: you accede to their demands and what they expect, rather than doing what you want. You sometimes say 'yes when you mean to say 'no'. Like the invisible man you prefer to stay in the shadows and let other people take centre stage. You do't like imposing yourself and always wait until you are asked. Your inner child is also therefore a bit submissive, indecisive and shy... It takes refuge in daydreams about the future which are often quite fantastical. What you lack is confidence and the force with which to make your dreams come true, simply because you are afraid to put others out. So, allow your inner child the chance to rebel and be brave; allow it to be headstrong and express its anger. You will then be free to express yourself, your interior world and your creativity.

The rebel daughter

There's no doubt about it, the image you've formed of your father is a negative one; you don't trust him, you don't do as he says. Whether because of things that have actually happened, or because of the way others have portrayed him, you don't think he deserves your love. You have tried to define yourself without any reference to him. You have tried to distance yourself from him because your worst fear is that you'll grow to be like him. The further away he is, the better. If you do meet, both of you are hostile: you go along prepared for a fight. You need to be careful you don't go too far, though, or you could get stuck in a position of anger and rebellion from which it is impossible to make peace. Your anger is that of the little girl you once were, who is rebelling and fighting against a father who doesn't show his love. She can't see the positive sides to this man, who so often seems to be in conflict with her mother. She rejects him before he can reject her, to avoid admitting that she craves his affection. You need to cry, and express the pain you feel so that you can come to terms with the fact that you didn't have the kind of dad you wanted. Eventually you will stop feeling so angry with him and stop hating him. You need to acknowledge the hurt you feel with regard to your father, and try to work out how you can get past it.

YOU’RE HAPPIEST WHEN YOU’RE SINGLE

As far as you’re concerned, it’s not a question of whether you’re ready for a relationship, but why you’d want to be in one in the first place. To hear you talk anyone would think that love was the last thing on your mind. You wouldn’t swap the freedom of being single for all the world. Relationships simply aren’t worth the trouble. Why complicate life unnecessarily? However, it’s likely that this is just a façade, and that in reality you harbour angry and bitter feelings towards an ex-partner who may have betrayed you or hurt you. To save face, and to avoid being hurt again, you have decided to steer clear of relationships altogether. The problem is that when you meet someone you like, you know they could end up hurting you like your ex did, so you end up being angry with them before you even get to know them. It would do you good to come to terms with the sadness you feel about your past relationships. This would help you see potential partners not just as people who might make you suffer, but as people who might make you happy.

TEST: FATHER/DAUGHTER RELATIONSHIP

Whether she admires him or can’t stand him, a girl’s relationship with her father is always the lynchpin of her personal life. The dynamic between a father and daughter is a complex one, and all the more so given that it has perhaps been explored less than other relationships. To work out what kind of father/daughter relationship you have answer the following questions as honestly as possible.

THE DISAPPOINTED DAUGHTER

Your father might as well be a stranger you met in the street. It's a chilly relationship between the pair of you, and you are quite aware of this. You are distanced from each other and there is no strong tie. You probably need to grieve for the father you can't have and get on with finding the real you. You were, at least, given a certain amount of independence when you were growing up, and you have been able to get on with life despite the father-shaped gap. Yet this has also made you slightly distant with other people, especially men, who you always fear will disappoint you. You feel persistent regret at the fact that you have missed the chance to get to know your father. You started off with a negative image of him (perhaps encouraged by what your mother has said) but ended up blaming yourself, coming to the conclusion that you weren't worth his love. You think to yourself: if my own father's not even interested in me, what do I expect other men to see in me? Inside there is a little girl who doesn't understand where it all went wrong. Your father has failed to do his job and he doesn't know how to show his feelings towards you. Try and talk to him. Better late than never — it's still possible to form a bond. If you have already tried to contact him and have had no response try to build your self-esteem and remind yourself that not all men are like him. Plenty of them would relish the chance to get to know you… and love you too.

TEST: HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT CHANGE?

YOU LACK MOTIVATION

Change isn’t difficult, and it’s not that you lack the will or the capacity for it, it’s just that you find it difficult to persevere long enough to see the results. Advantages: You allow yourself the luxury of changing your mind. The idea of making mistakes doesn’t frighten you. You understand that people who persevere are sometimes just stubborn. Disadvantages: Sometimes, because of a lack of belief, energy or staying power, you fail to follow things through. Even some decisions that you have thought through very carefully are abandoned at the first hurdle. Why the hesitation? Perhaps your self-esteem needs a boost before you feel up to the challenge of a major change. Or maybe you just need to know how to put your plans into action. Our advice: Try to make fewer changes, but work harder at following them through. Think about them more beforehand and try to distinguish the changes you really want to make for yourself, from those that are less central to your life.

TEST: DO YOU GET THE BEST OUT OF LIFE?

YOU GIVE AND RECEIVE

You maintain links with other people. Goethe said that the worst torture would be to be alone in paradise. How can you enjoy life if you can't share it with like-minded people. You like to be with others, and that's because you are wise (you can accept others for who they are) and you want to spend time with people (so that each can learn from the other). If you are going to improve your life then you need to make the most of all your relationships. The things you get out of your relationships are a source of inspiration and they repair emotional damage. You live love, in all its forms: from the most peaceful (curiosity about and tolerance of others) to the most intense (passion for a partner or love for your children). You learn a lot and take a lot from others but you give a lot too, by helping them to develop and do the best they can. But be careful: living for and with others can enrich your life but you will sometimes have to put up with imperfect or disappointing people. You need to be careful not to get to dependent on them, or neglect yourself while you are being so altruistic. But getting the best out of life by concentrating on your exchanges with others is one of the ways to get to the heart of the human condition: human beings are social animals.

TEST: CAN YOU DEAL WITH LIFE’S KNOCKS?

SELF-PROTECTION THROUGH INNER BALANCE

You don't really seem to feel the need for self-protection. This doesn't mean that you don't have problems to resolve or difficulties to get through in your daily life and nor does it mean that you fail to set boundaries for other people. As a general rule your boundaries are clearly set out because you are self-assured and this demands respect. But what is most interesting is that your inner balance allows you to get something positive out of each experience. So, something difficult might be happening, but you don't feel the need to run away from it. Quite the opposite: you welcome the chance to understand why it is happening at that particular moment and what associations it might have with events in your past. Some respect you for your wisdom. Others will be critical of it and will wish that it was more obvious when you were defending yourself. Without a doubt they are trying to put onto you their own idea of what it is to be vulnerable. So beware of complicating your life by absorbing too much of what those around you are feeling. You don't need to feel responsible for the failures of others. Think about your actions without being too judgemental. This more relaxed attitude will allow you to continue to develop without too many problems.

YOU SUFFER FROM CRIPPLING SHYNESS

It's a minefield out there, where terrifying battles take place every day. You live in constant fear of the unknown and of having to speak to people you don't know, so much so that you don't know how to move ahead. You try to plan everything in advance as much as possible to counteract the kind of social anxiety you feel. You try to find out who will be there when you go to this or that place or find yourself in this or that situation. That way things will be a little easier to cope with, and less scary. But you can't plan for everything, which is why you often prefer to turn down invitations or opportunities rather than expose yourself to situations you fear. There could be lots of reasons behind this fear of the outside world. For some it's part of depression, while others have a desperate subconscious desire to be liked that they can't face. They run from other people instead of seeking them out because they believe that they are no good at forming relationships. Seeing a therapist would help you get over these difficulties and would mean that you didn't have to deprive yourself of spending time with others.