http://www.care2.com/greenliving/stop-defending-your-self-image.html
Stop Defending Your Self-Image
Over the years you have built an idealized self-image that you defend as “me.” In this image are packed all the things you want to see as true about yourself; banished from it are all the shameful, guilty, and fear-provoking aspects that would threaten your self-confidence.
But the very aspects you try to push away return as the most insistent, demanding voices in your head. The act of banishment creates the chaos of your internal dialogue, and thus your ideal erodes even while you are doing everything to look good and feel good about yourself.
To really feel good about yourself, renounce your self-image. Immediately you will find yourself being more open, undefended, and relaxed.
Much time is spent in self-help trying to turn a bad self-image into a good one. As reasonable as that sounds, all self-images have the same pitfall: They keep reminding you of who you were, not who you are. The whole idea of I, me, and mine was erected on memories, and these memories are not really you. If you release yourself from your self-image, you will be free to choose as if for the first time.
Self-image keeps reality away, particularly at the emotional level. Many people don’t want to admit what they are actually feeling. Their self-image dictates that being angry, for example, or showing anxiety is not permissible. Such feelings don’t accord with the “kind of person I want to be.”
Certain emotions feel too dangerous to be part of your ideal image of yourself, so you adopt a disguise that excludes those feelings. Deep-seated rage and fear belong in this category, but sadly so does immense joy, ecstasy, or freewheeling spontaneity.
You stop being ruled by self-image when: You feel what you feel, you are no longer offended by things, you stop appraising how a situation makes you look, you don’t exclude people you feel superior or inferior to, you quit worrying about what others think about you, you no longer obsess over money, status, and possessions, and you no longer feel the urge to defend your opinions.
Adapted from The Book of Secrets, by Deepak Chopra (Harmony Books, 2004).
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16 comments
add your comment »I don't think you can just turn off things like your perception of who you are, and how others affect you . It took years for this information to develop and serves us well when we are young.
As we age, hopefully gracefully, our perceptions shift over a gradual period of time, and we become more "who and what" we are, freed from the costumes we had to wear to play the different roles in our life journey.
I am now 63, and finally learning who I am.
I no longer strive to please others, have become comfortable and accepting of my less then great body, have moved away emotionally from those who have hurt me or upset me in any way. They are still there, but they no longer have the power to upset me. I find more comfort in solitude and appreciate the small things much more than I did before. I think I am at peace with myself.
The things (good and bad and even terrible) that I have experienced along the way has shaped me into who I am today, and getting older has it's charm.
You can't go from grade 1 to grade 12, so do the best you can as you go from day to day, knowing that it is all temporary and eventually, you will reach a nice place, where it seems to all come together and makes sense .
Hopefully, you are doing good things, so that you will arrive in a good place when you are 63, and see yourself, the way you really are, and be pleased.
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Nicole, my take on" you are not being ruled by self image when you are no longer offended by things.." is this: When you stop putting up with behavior from others that you wouldn't do to others, you don't make space for them in your life anymore.In other words, they can't dump their disrespect for you and your time on you and expect to have it over looked. If they're being late really is no big deal to you because you're doing other stuff anyway, you're not likely to be offended, unless you want to make an issue of it.If someone is violent towards you that is the ultimate violation and of course you need to remove yourself! Why would you even wonder whether or not you should be offended? Violence is offensive. This is not something you need to ponder. Tolorence doesn't mean putting up with things you don't like, it means removing yourself or repelling them away from you, but once that is done, leave them alone.If they are deliberatly inflicting cruelty on another, report them to those who are equiped to handle it.
When you are not around those who would misuse your trust, your ego doesn't even come up. So then you are not offended.After a while, you get so well grounded in your calm center that you can send up flames if you need to, without guilt or fear.
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I have found over the years that there is no way that I can win the approval of any groups and I think that actually this is part of the lesson I am meant to learn in this life. The liking and friendship offered me at this site for my ideas and how I express them is a totally unique experience for me and so very nicely different. That is because here I am casting my seeds widely and all the response to them is to the ideas alone. How I look and what makes me laugh and how I like my loving is never a part of the equation so I feel that I am liked truly for myself and judged only on the quality of my mind which is my eternal self;the self looking out into different realities depending on where my attention focuses. I have learned that I will always find different things to be funny and beautiful and attractive and important than the people around me and that no attempt to mimic their stance could ever ring true. This being said: what for me seemed the curse of not belonging anywhere when I was young has become the blessing of always belonging wherever I may be irregardless of company; when my soul makes contact with one whom I am naturally in harmony with I know that it is real and true and will never relate to any falseness on my part so my relationships are blessed with the joy of freedom. The loneliness of my youth has transformed to contentment and fear of how to act to be liked is an unthinkable burden so foreign that it seems another life.
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my problem is not others but myself. i just can't accept change. change in my physical appearance, change in life style, and also priorities in life. becoming a mother 2 years ago has made me feel the happiest emotions of my life but also confusion on who is the person staring back at me in the mirror.its as if my spirit can't catch up with reality. im happy most of the time but i have a problem with my perception of myself. cant accept aging i guess rounds it all up. how can i let go!
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One of the few times I agree with the article. What needs to be added to it is that being POLITICALLY CORRECT adds even MORE to this problem of denial of true reality feelings. If you hate something, you hate it. If you love something, you love it. If it is GREEN, ITS GREEN. Society has created such B.S. with this that everyone is afraid to truely be FREE of self image restrants. We worry about what others even countries will think of us if we speak our true feelings. Therefore we hide them and falsely give responces harboring our TRUE REALITY. I know of relationships breaking up simply over 1 being POLITICALLY IN CORRECT. This is DISGUSTING. CONTROL by the MINORITY. Our country was bulit on MAJORITY RULE..... REMEMBER??? Or did you even know this? Unfortunately this generation likes to FORGET what the older ones have GIVIN THEM. Even when it was their own LIFE.
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Thank you Teatcher
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Its all very well, but how do you liberate yourself from your ego or self image?
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If you can't wake up in the morning, face the mirror and not feeling good - then you have a problem with your self-image or your ego.
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The US self image is getting really hard to defend in light of Iraq and the financial crisis caused by vulture capitalism causing entire countries into bankruptcy!!
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Nicole,
I suffer with getting overly offended & not being able to let go, and have found solace from what the Buddhist Monk in India said in the book EAT, PRAY, LOVE. A few things in it offended me, but I believe it's because it's the author's own personal journey, and some things I'd have handled differently than her, as perhaps you probably would, but that doesn't mean there isn't good information in it.
Also, letting go of frustrations caused by actions of others, isn't the same as tolerating unhealthiness. It's humane nature, for good reason as it protects us, to get emotional from certain situations. And, also, owning up to those emotions is honest and healthy. But to hold onto them isn't.
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