All too often I’ll hear from clients in my practice a quiet disclosure that they secretly consider themselves to be flawed in some way. Usually kept to themselves, this fundamental belief they’ve hidden about how they feel towards themselves has powerful and far-reaching effects upon most areas of their life.
Our self-image, or how we tend to think about ourselves, infiltrates virtually all the ways we are in the world. It influences the ways we see and feel about ourselves. How we behave, the level of participation in our relationships, what type of work as well as at what level of work are all choices we make accordingly in part due to our self-perceptions.
If, on one hand, you hold a self-perception that includes, say, an ability for adaptability, and accommodating new things (comfort with starting at the lower level of a learning curve and trusting you’ll be able to learn new stuff) then such a self-perception could lead to acquiring a wider range of skills, among other benefits.
On the contrary, a person whose internal messages relay the information that they don’t trust themselves to move outside their comfort zone of already learnt behaviors (or information, or perceptions…) may resort to limiting themselves of new experiences, preferring instead to stay with what they already know.
They may not trust themselves enough to know they are capable of learning something new.
The fundamental belief and therefore message underpinning the latter would go something like – ” why bother, I’m not good at that, I’ve never been able to __________(fill in the blank), I always mess up…I’ve always failed at….story of my life…”
Is it any wonder that risks aren’t taken if you’re exposing yourself to those subliminal messages continuously?
If you recognize yourself in this description, and many will, you are not alone! Sadly this is quite commonplace for those of us raised in the west.
A touching story relays when His Holiness The Dalai Lama was first told about this common western experience, he struggled to comprehend the concept. Such a thing was unknown among Tibetans, it turned out. After much dialogue, and questioning of terminology in order to fully understand this new concept, apparently the Dali Lama simply wept in response to this revelation out of compassion for the degree of suffering experienced by those believing themselves to be flawed.
The Buddha stated that “You could go all around the world, and not find anyone more deserving of love then yourself.” ‘Buddhanature’ refers to the inherent goodness we are all born with, and is our natural state.
Perhaps a better internal message is “I’m OK as I am, and there’s room for improvement!”
Softly but determinedly allowing that internal message to morph from ‘I’m flawed’ to ‘I’m OK’ means paying attention without being judgemental, developing awareness – the pre-requisite for any change, and the persistance to keep at it.
We become good at what we practice.
