Cinderella Complex and how to heal it

by Adina Gheorghe

What is Cinderella complex?
Cinderella Complex was described in the book of Colette Dowling "Cinderella complex - Women's fear of independence." She has defined it as women's fear of independence, as an unconscious desire to be taken care of by others. This unconscious trend is one of the causes that keep women in dysfunctional relationships or make them unable to find a lover and to fulfill themselves in a couple through a healthy and balanced relationship.

It's a mixture of feelings, attitudes and fears that lead women to deny, to suppress or not have sufficient confidence in their own aptitudes.

This complex is specific to women, although having many real qualities they are not able to rely on their own forces and to act in order to transform their life as they wish. They do not trust their own values - qualities and real skills - and wait for someone from the outside to highlight and help them to believe in them, like in the fairy tail about Good Fairy and the Prince. These women do not believe they are able to pull through on their own. They have a very strong faith regarding this destructive weakness.

These women even come to a very large discrepancy between what they want (imagine) and what actually happens in their life. They are lost in imagination and do not notice the good things they have already in their life or the opportunities, which are offered to them. They often feel unhappy, lonely and sad, even when they are surrounded by people who love them.

It is important not to forget that if we are not able to really love ourselves, we are not able to feel any love of others for us. If we do not respect ourselves, we will not believe even when others appreciate us honestly. There are many situations in which telling a woman "you're beautiful" or "how much I appreciate the X quality" she says "me?" being totally surprised that she has qualities and someone appreciates them.

Cinderella really wants metamorphosis of her life, she wants profound transformation, good things to happen in her life, she wants her dreams come true. But she remains satisfied with just dreaming, wishing, with the irrational attitude of being passive. She does not undertake a concrete and obvious step in this direction. And, not accidentally, as in the Cinderella fairy tale, negative personages appear in her life and challenge her way to happiness and dreams fulfillment, they also demean, criticize and minimize her value.


The way Cinderella behaves in a relationship
Women who have Cinderella’s complex become greatly attached to the man they love. She revolves a lot around the needs of the man or the family, very much neglecting her own needs. She believes (consciously or unconsciously) that she does not deserve much. This is why she cannot healthy express her wishes and needs even to herself, much less to her lover.
Day after day she accumulates frustrations in this way, but she does not do anything in order to change this situation. She refuges in a sterile dream hoping one day the Good Fairy will appear and learn her what to do and will turn her tatters into bright prom dress and only then the others will be able to truly appreciate her value and will treat her like a princess.

This dependence to her lover makes her leave the other to organize her life and this is primarily because she does not have the courage to take her own life. She is waiting to be helped, her life to be guided step by step, as though her own life is not of her problem, but her lover’s, spouse’s or other persons’ close to her.

Self-esteem is not offered by anyone, it must be acquired by ourselves
Some women say "I do not trust myself because no one ever appreciated me" or "I do not trust myself because as a child I was criticized a lot."
Yes, it's true, our childhood affects us, the way others have behaved or are behaving towards us affects us more or less. But the time came to quit being Cinderellas, to get out of dreaming and passivity, to give up the fairy tale about Fairy and savior Prince and take responsibility of our own life. Now is the time to act in order to fulfillour dreams, no matter what happened in our life so far.

What prevents a woman with a Cinderella complex to be fulfilled is not lack of qualities or opportunities, but the fact that she remains at the stage of dreaming about what she wants and is not acting in any way to get what she wants. This passivity affects our self-esteem because, just dreaming and not accomplishing things prove us every day that we are not able, we are not valuable. Often we blame others for our failure to accomplish what we want, but in fact it is all up to us, our choices.

In order to start feeling our value, it is necessary to start by being attentive to us and then to have the courage to highlight it. When we decide to act fear may appear: fear of making mistakes, fear that we will not be perfect, the fear that someone will criticize us, fear that our efforts will not be appreciated. If we let fear overwhelm us and we do not act we'll remain a Cinderella full of potentialities, but who will never shine.
Every Cinderella needs to understand that it is not the "Stepmother" who is the cause of of her misery, but the fact she hides in "the ashes of the stove" or works in the house and does nothing to make herself valuable and fulfill her dreams.

Acting – this is the antidote for Cinderella complex
We all have dreams and want them to be fulfilled. Get out of the dreaming and make concret actions NOW. Do you have emotional trauma? Act now in order to cure them. There are lots of methods, you have just to look for. You do not trust yourself? Act now to increase your self confidence and self esteem. There are effective methods for this too. Do you want to accomplish something? Act NOW and fulfill your dreams.
Your life is in your hands!

 

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