You Are Who You Think You Are

Our self-image is formed by allowing ourselves to be influenced by various authority figures. As we mature and accept the responsibility of defining ourselves, these internalized voices of authority must each be examined and evaluated. It is only when we take back our own power to define ourselves that we are truly free.

Our conscious mind is where thoughts are formed. Our subconscious mind is where our creative mind takes root. As we learn to harness the vast power and energy of the subconscious mind, we are tapping into our real source.

Transactional analysis therapists estimate that we each have 25,000 hours of internalized negative self-talk. We are generally taught what is wrong with us by our authority figures at home, school, church, etc. In an effort to understand who we are, we accept these self-limiting labels as who we are. However, we each individually are the only one who can truly “know” who we are, or, at least, we are in the best position to make the best educated guess. Learn to challenge the “voices” (one of friends called them “the committee”) or negative self-talk you carry around in your head. Listen to what you tell yourself about you.

In learning to monitor your inner critic, learn to first determine if the criticism is helpful. If you find the suggestion to be helpful, next check to see if the inner critic is kind, gentle, and polite to you. If it is in a condemning voice, ask you inner critic to speak kinder to you.

The techniques you may use to change your inner critic from enemy to friend are: speed up the volume, mimic a falsetto voice, etc. My favorite ploy when I was learning this was to scream “Stop”. It is better to practice these techniques while alone. As someone has suggested—learn to join the airwaves until you own the station.

Self-esteem comes from how we evaluate and accept or reject input as well as the foundation we’ve created from the successes we’ve experienced. By learning to focus on our strengths rather than on our weaknesses, we have each take charge of our own destiny.

After learning how to utilize our inner critic, we next need to take charge of our thoughts. What we choose to focus our thinking on determines what we will think and feel about ourselves. You are what you think you are. By substituting positive self-talk for negative self-talk, we are re-programming ourselves for positive action.

We Feel What We Choose

No one else can make anyone feel anything, everything we feel is our choice. If we are choosing to continue in relationships, jobs, or situations that contribute to our feelings of negativity, we need to ask ourselves why we aren’t choosing to be happy. Happiness is a choice. With the choosing of happiness comes the responsibility to give up self-destructive patterns. Learn to distinguish what you like and what you don’t like.

The healing principle is that as we believe we will get better, we will get better. But choices have to be made. You can’t hold on to misery with one hand and reach for happiness with the other. As the trapeze artist lets go of one bar before she grasps the next one, so also must we give up misery for happiness.

Other methods to increase our self-esteem are (1) set goals from the dreams we have of what we would like to have in our lives, (2) learn to take risks in all areas of your life, and (3) develop a clear-cut precise schedule adding physical, mental, and spiritual healthy activities to our weekly life.

In developing positive self-talk, affirmations and guided imagery may be used. Remember our subconscious mind doesn’t know if something has happened already or is to happen in the future. Only the conscious mind knows time.

Therefore, don’t implant wishes or doubts with words like maybe or is or I hope. Use action positive words such as I am, I enjoy, I believe, I want, etc. Trust your subconscious to lead you to your “higher self”.

Develop an attitude of being gentle with yourself. Learn to recognize that the source of uncomfortable feelings is that we have added some degree of judgment to the future. The pain we feel is fear which is the withholding of love. The withholding hurts us as well as the person we’re “punishing”.

So all hatred is self-hatred first. It begins inside us and is projected outward. As we learn our loveability, we see the love in others. As we love ourselves, we project the love to others. As we love ourselves, we project to others. We confuse the giving of loving with the power of others. If I love someone who chooses not to love me, have I lost anything? If I choose to not love another and feel that hatred pass through me, have I gained anything? Who is the loser when I choose not to love?

We each have life issues that periodically disrupt our patterns. Knowing our issues helps us to accept the lessons quicker by spending less time in denial of them. Some of these issues may be: accepting our feelings, labeling our feelings, control, boundaries, intimacy, commitment, conflict, trust, authority figures, etc.

Likewise, we each are a collection of selves: (1) child, (2) adolescent, (3) teenager, (4) young adult, and possibly, (5) an older adult. Periodically, we need to “step back” emotionally and observe our own behavior in order to understand the behavior choices we are making.

In learning to check in with ourselves, we come to accept that just as we may be coming from several different vantage points from within ourselves, so also are all the other persons we encounter whether they are aware of their vantage points or not.

Road of Self-Discovery

“Often people attempt to live their lives backwards; they try to have more things or more money, in order to do more of what they want, so they will be happier. The way it actually works is the reverse. You must first be who you really are, then do what you need to do, in order to have what you want.”                                                                                 Margaret Young

On your road to self-discovery, remember to look for guidance among persons that are on their individual path of growth. If anyone wants to tell you who to be, that person is not growing but is trying to avoid growth by “changing” you. Some people call this codependency.

Yet we all are probably codependent at one time or another. It is the nature of love to sometimes be giving more than we are receiving from another. But the codependent uses concern to gain power over others in the classic position of “top-dog”. Shared power is the only ingredient in relationships that determines how healthy the union is.

When You Find the Buddha in the Middle of the Road–Kill Him is the wise title of a good book by Sidney Kopp. No one knows what is better for anyone but that person. We each have our own answers. Even those trained in counseling techniques can only see what is revealed. Tendencies may be seen and certainly personality indicators will be there. But the work of change is a person’s individual choice.