February 21, 2008 - Sense of Self

Sometimes in life, things make us question our own self-image. Maybe things that have been done to us, experiences, etc. or the way we were brought up...

The main question for me sometimes is: Why don't I have any boundaries? We are out of balance if we are sacrificing for others and hurting ourselves in the process. We need to remember to love and protect ourselves as well.

Sometimes I can be motivated by the dictates of others, and I even worry about what people think of me, even when I've gone the extra mile and then some for these people.

Becoming your own best friend is like any other relationship...it takes time.

Your sense of self is a lens through which you view the world, the people you deal with, and your own behavior. All the information that comes into your mind is processed through your sense of self. The pain we all bear from past hurts is great, and it can accumulate over time. We cannot dump it all at once. It takes time. It takes magic lens. We need to get to the heart of our self-esteem...the messages that form our personal doctrine about ourselves, the habits we use to put ourselves down for, the fear of committing to ourselves and stepping into life as a full human being. Isolate the villians that keep you bound...deal with them one by one.

Take stock of yourself. Knowing yourself means coming to terms with both your strengths and your weaknesses. The road starts with self knowledge.

No type is better than any other type. You may wish you were more like another type of person than yourself, but that does no good. The world needs all types to balance out. If you went to a zoo with all bears that would be boring. Every type has a host of good things! Everyone has strengths and weaknesses. Healthy living comes from using your strengths and working on your weaknesses.

Humility is good. It is good to know your limits. Humility understands that we need each other. All people are precious and that each person has individual gifts that are valuable. Whatever deeds we accomplish, we probably owe a great deal to other people. Humility keeps a balanced sense of self.

"We forfeit three-fourths of ourselves to be like other people." - Arthur Schopenhauer. This is sad but true. Some of our weaknesses are just parts of who we are that cannot be changed. We need to accept the things we cannot change and work on the ones we can. There are rumors that go around in your head...like, "I am no good." or "I'm not smart enough." or "I'm not pretty enough.", etc., etc. Sometimes these problems start b/c of other people. I'm not saying to live in the past, but you need to go back and identify these "villians". Sometimes a seed planted by an important person in your life can be the root of all weaknesses. We build on misunderstandings of the past. We can be convinced of shortcomings that don't even exist.

Misunderstandings occur b/c we are all still learning to read each other. Our personal doctrine becomes based on these misunderstandings. We need to go back and forgive those misunderstandings. We need to renounce their hold on us.

A lot of times, it seems, that someone may be struggling to maintain their own identity. Because of the way someone may have treated you, your sense of identity may still bear a lot of scars. This goes both ways. When you seek out the villians in your life, you cannot say that they are necessarily an evil person. You just say that that person has "damaged" you, and they may have had their own reasons...maybe they had to do what they did b/c of their own villians.

You have to accept the fact that some people do wrong...and sometimes it is for no good reason or no reason at all.

You have to forgive and then cut the cord in order to renounce the past. You cut the cord that connects you to past events. As long as you feel spiteful or vengeful about wrongs that were done to you, you are tied to those wrongs, like a dog on a leash. That leash will keep you from being able to move forward.

As long as you have this sense of spite, you will not be able to move forward into self-acceptance. You will still be fighting old battles. You need to let them rest. Let go.

You need to acknowledge your own weaknesses. No one is perfect. Everyone makes mistakes. You can put it behind you.

The past is irrelevent to who you are now and to who you will be in the future. You should be free from your own self-judgment and become free to love.

If you are your own villian, you must come face to face with your own misdeeds and have the courage to turn away from them, forgive yourself, renounce the power of your past and cut the cords of guilt.

Whether you know it or not, your "villians" succeeded in setting terms. You have agreed to put yourself down as much as possible, or to refrain from doing certain adventurous things, or to refuse to act confidently. By renouncing the power of the past, you are breaking that contract with the "villian". Try something new! Do something you would never have allowed yourself to do before! Go rebuild your personal story.

"It's hard to beat the system when you're standing at a distance..." - John Mayer

Become your own best friend! =)

- Thomas A. Whiteman, Ph.D. & Randy Petersen

* This entire blog minus some of my own words here and there was taken from "Becoming Your Own Best Friend" by Thomas A. Whiteman, PhD & Randy Petersen
I did not try nor intend for these to be my own words. FYI! I do not plagiarize.