Self Image
Our self-image, or self-esteem, may be the most critical factor in our lives.
How we see ourselves radically affects the tools of change we have at our disposal in any challenge or situation.
If we believe we can, we can. If we believe we can't, we can't.
If we believe in ourselves, “ain’t no mountain high, ain’t no valley low” enough to keep us from getting over or getting through.
But when we don’t believe in ourselves, ain’t no level plane flat enough to allow us to cross.
Almost all of life is about our heart for facing the challenges, and it is in our own self-image that our ability to gather that strength lies.
It’s all about who YOU think you are.
You ARE who you BELIEVE you are.
Do you think you’re capable?
Do you think you’re worthy?
Too often, our answer to such questions is, No.
Our self-image is forged in experience (sociologists call it the “looking glass self,” because we form our opinions of ourselves out of the reflections of others).
And we’re born to families (and into a world) with one fatal flaw.
They’re full of humans.
Our parents—good or bad—are human.
And being human, no matter how much (or little) they loved us, or how much or how little they paid attention, they couldn't help but let us down.
And . . . we, for better or worse, for more or for less, were (and are) human too. Which means that, most of the time, we fail/ed to adequately communicate our needs and/or our needs just couldn’t be central to others, because their own needs were overwhelming.
People are far from perfect. So we all start down this road with a handicap—the handicap of forming our own image of self in a flawed mirror—the mirror of the expressed thoughts and perceptions of others.
And that’s just didn’t give us an accurate assessment, because there’s another fact.
Flawed as we are, we are more than we know.
Marianne Williamson wrote:
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small doesn’t serve the world.
There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It’s not just in some of us, it’s in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine,
We unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fears, our presence automatically liberates others.
You are powerful beyond measure. You are brilliant, gorgeous (no matter how you do or don’t match the Hollywood ideal of mainstream culture), talented, and fabulous. You are a child, as equally as anyone else, of whatever creative force made us all. And your playing small doesn’t serve anyone, least of all, yourself.
But it’s hard to let ourselves shine. Sometimes others put us down, pull us back, if we start to “make manifest the glory” that is in us, because if we appear confident or accomplished, they take their negativity out on us.
Other times, it’s not an individual or group that pulls us down. Sometimes, it’s just the accumulated wear of the situations in which we tried and then, seemed to lose, that keeps us from trying again, from daring to *know* how very powerful we really are.
We get so locked into this earth plane, into this limited physical realm. And yet…
You are more than you know. You are brighter than the nearest, largest star; deeper than the ocean’s depths; taller than Everest.
You are the creation of Creativity. A spark off the flame, you are full of creativity yourself.
In just the same way that you are a descendant of one or more ethnic trees (Irish, or Italian, or Polish, or African, or Puerto Rican, or Lakota, or Korean, etc., etc., ad infinitum), you are a descendant of infinite diverse Creativity.
In just the same way that you are the child of your (flawed) parents, you are the child of (unflawed) Creativity.
Even if this entire universe came together entirely by chance, you are the child of that Creative chance.
Whether you believe in an intelligent Creator, or an impersonal universal force, or chance alone—something created you, and you have that creativity in you—because It, whatever It is, made YOU, of necessity, in its image.
You speak to mountains, command them to be moved into the sea, and they obey you.
You speak worlds into existence, whether or not you know.
And you create, and recreate, yourself—daily.
Taking that creative power—
you can begin to recreate your self-image,
to raise your own self-esteem.
Imagine with me, a wonderful person, full of value and worth. Picture what she or he looks like, functions like, acts like. This person has it all together. But suddenly, that person is falsely arrested and falsely accused; and for the next period of time, that person’s life takes a bad turn. They are punished and mistreated, all for something they didn’t do.
Then the authorities discover their mistake. Our person is released.
Is our person now of any less value or worth because s/he* had a bad experience?
No.
She or he is still the wonderful person s/he was before.
S/he might need a little time, a little healing.
S/he might want, and may not get, an apology or reparations of some sort.
But whether or not s/he needs to mend, and whether or not s/he gets what we erroneously call “justice” (retribution), s/he is still every bit the wonderful person s/he was before s/he was mistreated—because that is hir* essence.
The essence of hir being is not reduced.
S/he is not made less because s/he had a bad experience or was mistreated.
S/he did not do the mistreating.
This person is our inner self, our inner child.
And for many of us, our childhoods were like false arrest and false imprisonment. For some of us, the mistreatment came with adolescence. For others of us, we were doing just fine until we realized that, in one way or another, we didn’t fit society’s model (or our culture’s model) of who we should be.
But our bad experiences don’t actually have the power to make us any less valuable, any less worthy, any less essentially important.
Our essence remains untouched. Beneath the layers of hard experience, underneath the misperceptions of others, we still matter.
And we can get the healing we need.
Children of the Creative, we can: recreate our damaged self-image, come to see our own true worth and heal our own self-esteem, correct our contaminated (subconscious) programming.
You can.
Hypnosis is such a tool.
Hypnosis is a door by which YOU can access your own subconscious mind and rewrite the program. Through the tool of hypnotherapy, you can bring light to the past that makes you feel unworthy, or less important than you really are, AND THEN, you can create a new self-image—an image of the self you long to become (and are much closer to than you realize).
Spiritual Hypnotherapy is about bringing the power of your human spirit to bear on your conscious and unconscious mind— for excavating and for making educated choices that shift you out of own wrong thinking and into possibility thinking. Through the power of your own mind, you can bring your thoughts and feelings, your beliefs and ideals, you inner images and outer
realities into line with your desires. You can first, find out what you’re thinking, second, decide what would be more accurate and more productive, and third, change what you hear on that repeating loop in your mind.
Most of us have known no greater enemy than ourselves.
You can discover just how big you really are, just how wonderful, just how bright. You can take hold of that image of yourself—bright, shiny, strong—and bloom to your full potential.
You can set your talents and ambitions free.
You can choose to bless yourself.
You can choose to bless the world.
Through the power of (self-tailored) suggestion, you can fix the track you run on and undo the damage (intentionally or unintentionally) to your self-belief. You can begin to see just how valuable you really are, and from that belief—release from prison the wonder that is the real you. You can set your inside free.
Learn what you can do to finally, truly, love you.
A hypnotherapist does not, cannot, and should not replace medical assistance.
Hypnotherapy is a complementary modality.
Individuals should continue their work with other care providers.