The Intense Power of The Self Image

Nothing on earth happens purely by accident. A person is living because he was meant to live, and he has talents and abilities that are totally his own or her own, unique to him or her. Your job then, as a person, is to learn to be yourself. If you do, you will like yourself. I believe you will discover, you're quite a person after all. You will recognize and accept the things that you cannot do as well. You will also understand and appreciate those things that have been given to you, to do well.

You will accept yourself for what you really are, one of a kind, as different from anyone else, as much as your fingerprint or signature.

There is a trend in the education of our young people that has been developing strength for sometime now; all signs show that it is an important one, a part of learning that will continue to flourish, as long as we seek to expand human potential. We are not talking about genetics or computer science, but rather the building of self- esteem, and self-image.

It has been said that the more we search outward, the more we discover inward. The discovery of the strength in ourselves, to live a life unshackled from the bonds of self-doubt.

Let us explore the essence of personal courage and see how this inner strength develops as a vital by product of a healthy self-image.

Imagine that you are seated in a theater looking at the curtain which hides the blank screen. You wait for the feature picture to begin. How will you be changed by the coming attraction? How will it effect you? What impact will it have on your life? Will you feel moved, perhaps even to tears, will you laugh at a comedy, or feel terrified at the crisis faced by the hero, of heroin, will you feel wonderful waves of love, and compassion, or surges of resentment? You may be overcome with emotion, this special feature you will view is all about you, the most fascinating person in the world, you, and you alone!

In this theater, which is in the mind and heart of each of us, you are the producer, director, writer and actor, hero and the villain. You are the film technician up in the booth, and the audience that reacts to this thrilling drama.

The exciting story unfolding upon this inner screen, is one which is invented every second of your life, yesterday, tomorrow, but most important, right now. You watch that image upon that screen, and you invent that image upon that screen, right now.

Will that story have a happy ending? Is this feature a story of joy, and accomplishment, or loss, and failure? The mystery is already there, and the focused eye will know the outcome to be. There is one realization that can comfort you. The truth being you are the dramatist, the actor, the director, you can change the story as it unfolds, now, this instant and for your whole lifetime.

Now and forever on, you can make this a success story, you can be the hero and conquer the villain. You can make this a heart warming story which can enrich the lives of all who know you, rather than a drab mechanical tale, a chronicle of boredom.

Everything is inside you, it all depends on what you do with that image you carry in you, an image which is your most important tool for good, or for ill. Everything therefore depends on you and your self- image.

The self-image is your own conception of the sort of person you are. Your self-image is a product of past experiences, successes and failures, humiliations, and triumphs and the way other people react to you, especially in early childhood. From these factors and from others, you build up a picture of yourself which you believe is true. The picture may be false, and in many cases is false, but the important fact here, is that you act just as if it were true, for all intense and purpose, it is true.

If you have developed a good, healthy, successful self image, fine. However if it can stand some improvement you can change it for the better and start getting the kinds of results such a change will bring about.

We must live by the standards we choose for ourselves, challenge yourself, choose high standards, be a person that you can be proud of. We can set new limits in place of the old limits, but we can not surpass the limits of our current self- image.

Our self-image determines the size and kind of person we become. We can remove our self-imposed limitations by enlarging our self-image.

We form a mental picture of ourselves through experience, and we can change that picture the same way, through experience. If the actual experience we need is not available to us, we can, according to self-image psychology, create that experience, synthetically.

Now scientist agree that the human nervous system is incapable of distinguishing between actual experience and the same experience imagined vividly, and in complete detail. Worry is a good example of this synthetic experience. When a person worries about something he projects himself mentally, emotionally, even physically, into a situation that has not even occurred. The man who worries himself about failure, finds himself experiencing the same reactions that accompany actual failure, feelings of anxiety, inadequacy and humiliation. As far as his body and mind are concerned, he has failed.

Now everything can be viewed in either of two ways, positively or negatively, constructively or destructively. Worry is the negative use of creative imagination, it is a negative synthetic experience. But most people apparently never realize that positive results, just as real as the negative results of worry, can be achieved through using our imagination constructively. By concentrating on the success we all desire, by synthetically experiencing that success, we can expand our self-image into that of a person for whom success is normal, expected.