Support That 8 Year Old

Imagine being able to make a substantial difference in the life of an 8 year old boy or girl. Each one of us has deep down inside an 8 year old version of ourselves whose dreams have yet to be fulfilled. One of my patients fulfilled her childhood dream when she scheduled her consult with me to discuss her decision to get a rhinoplasty – something she had wanted to do since she was 8 years old.

What made her wait so long and what made her finally stop waiting? Like many of us, she had various forms of resistance – not having time for recovery, being concerned that she would actually get the result she was looking for, and (given that this was her first encounter with the art of plastic surgery) not yet having a full understanding of the process.

In my patient’s case, the fortunate moment arrived when the pain of having not fulfilled her dream had finally become greater than whatever seeming discomfort she might have had to go through to give herself what she wanted.

With the growing popularity of her widely-viewed reality show, she was seeing herself on screen with increasing frequency. It was almost as if each time she would see herself, she also was seeing her 8 year old inner self quietly questioning, “when are we going to do this already?”

“Right now!” she boldly responded – not so much with her words, but with her actions. She conducted her research, contacted our office, and consummated a promise she had made to herself when she was a little girl because now she was a woman who was in a position to make good on her promise. Afterwards, she said her only regret was not having done it sooner. So, what are you waiting for?