Breakthrough or Bull$#it ?
AbandonedOne
Registrant
Hi guys. I want to thank all of those who responded so compassionately to my last posting. It means a lot to me.
Over the last couple of days i've been listening to a rather well-know human development expert talk about the issue of Identity; who each of us perceives ourselves to be.
He says, "One of the strongest needs within our personality is to make certain that our behavior is consistent with our identity, even if the identity we hold for ourself is negative."
He goes on to say that there is a very big difference between (for example) procrastinating at times, going through a period in your life where you procrastinate a lot, and "knowing" that you ARE a procrastinator.
He says that once you decide that's who you ARE, your behavior will be consistent with it, simply because you Need to be consistent with your own identity. Says it works in every context you can imagine.
According to him, the beliefs we have about Who We Are--our Identity--create the Boundaries within which we live our lives.
Apparently you've gotta be Very Careful about the Labels that you create for yourself--or that you allow others to Give you--because they begin to define your experience of life. They begin to change what you Notice about yourself, what you're willing to Try, what your'e Not willing to try. They define the way you Live.
"I can show you how to get off drugs and not use drugs," he says, "but if you believe you ARE a Drug Addict--and if you don't use drugs for six months--i guarantee you it's gonna be a struggle, because you're fighting Who You Are the whole time; and eventually there's a good chance you'll go back, or for the rest of your life you'll need to go to sessions where you'll try to remind yourself that you can't use drugs."
He goes on to outline several stories, as just examples, of people who've been addicted to drugs for years--HARD drugs--and in One Day they've quit and never touched it again. How did they DO that?! A change from Saul to Paul, as it were. Where one day what they once loved they now hate, and what they once hated they now love.
That's an IDENTITY change, he says. That happens when you No Longer See Yourself as a drug addict.
He goes on to say, "Think about it. Isn't there something in your life that you would just never do? I mean NEVER. You wouldn't do it because its not part of your Identity. Its not part of your beliefs about Who You Are."
He said, "We've gotta perceive ourselves in a different way. Not just our Capabilities, but Who We Are, RIGHT NOW. Not Some Day, but TODAY.
"That shift begins the minute you begin to CONSCIOUSLY define yourself, instead of letting the environment do it For you."
He shares a little bit about his "formative" years and how what's called the Pygmalian Effect figured into it. In the third grade he attended a very strict school and everyone memorized the multiplication tables there. Well, midway through the year he was transferred to a different school, one that was just Starting to learn the multiplication tables. He shares how he aced all the math tests due to this, all the strokes he got from his teacher, how he was allowed to go to the library to work on independant studies while the other kids in his class were sweating over learning the tables. He decided to study light and how light works. The teacher was fascinated by his research and encouraged him all the more. Well, long story short, he soon became known as the kid with all the answers and eventually was moved into a special class and labeled a "Gifted Youth."
"If you didn't get that gift of being labeled "gifted" earlier, why don't you give yourself that gift right Now? We're ALL gifted. All it is is a darn Label.
"So many kids get negative labels because they merely have different learning strategies/styles that weren't catered to. But they've Accepted them, and grown up with them as part of their identity.
"And that label doesn't just affect their ability to Learn. It affects their self-image, their sense of self-worth, it affects the way they look at their Whole Lives!"
We will behave consistent with our identity even if our identity is Negative, so we must be Very Careful about what we buy into.
He then goes into some strategies regarding the how-to of changing our "identity," some practical stuff that there's really no room to go into here.
- - -
I've thought about these concepts quite a bit over the last few days and i gotta say, they're making sense to me.
It has also struck me that women seem to have had a jump-start on this. The whole phenomena of "reinventing yourself" that permeates a lot of women's literature seems to deal largely with the issue; and they've been doing it for years and years.
My question is, am i missing something guys?
Do i have the power to do what he said?
I mean, right now my identity consists of words like this:
I am a victim
I am hopeless
I am an addict
I am abandoned
I am helpless
I am stupid
I am worthless
I am unworthy
I am unresourcful
I am heartbroken
The concepts of identity and self-image seem very closely related, if not synonymous, in my research.
I've read of the analogy of a thermostat in regard to self image. If the "temperature" in one's life gets either too "hot" or too "cold" the subconscious thermostat automatically kicks in to regulate things back to a "normalcy" dictated by one's self-image.
For instance, its been noted that individuals will actually sabotage themselves financially in life because they don't see themselves in their mind's eye as making over, say, 35k a year, even if an opportunity is presented to them for making much, much more money with no more work. All because its just not part of their "identity" to have money or a lifestyle like that.
Which begs the question, if you envision yourself as hopelessly spiraling downward to homelessness and obscurity, as i currently do, is it inevitable to end up in just such a state?
If so, i should really be sweatin about now.
But if this stuff is true, then i should really thank my lucky stars or God or whatever for the information, cuz there's nothing i would love more than to flush that little list of "identity statements" i shared with you.
Well i'm done fellas. What do YOU think?
Full of balony, or breakthrough stuff?
--Gary
Over the last couple of days i've been listening to a rather well-know human development expert talk about the issue of Identity; who each of us perceives ourselves to be.
He says, "One of the strongest needs within our personality is to make certain that our behavior is consistent with our identity, even if the identity we hold for ourself is negative."
He goes on to say that there is a very big difference between (for example) procrastinating at times, going through a period in your life where you procrastinate a lot, and "knowing" that you ARE a procrastinator.
He says that once you decide that's who you ARE, your behavior will be consistent with it, simply because you Need to be consistent with your own identity. Says it works in every context you can imagine.
According to him, the beliefs we have about Who We Are--our Identity--create the Boundaries within which we live our lives.
Apparently you've gotta be Very Careful about the Labels that you create for yourself--or that you allow others to Give you--because they begin to define your experience of life. They begin to change what you Notice about yourself, what you're willing to Try, what your'e Not willing to try. They define the way you Live.
"I can show you how to get off drugs and not use drugs," he says, "but if you believe you ARE a Drug Addict--and if you don't use drugs for six months--i guarantee you it's gonna be a struggle, because you're fighting Who You Are the whole time; and eventually there's a good chance you'll go back, or for the rest of your life you'll need to go to sessions where you'll try to remind yourself that you can't use drugs."
He goes on to outline several stories, as just examples, of people who've been addicted to drugs for years--HARD drugs--and in One Day they've quit and never touched it again. How did they DO that?! A change from Saul to Paul, as it were. Where one day what they once loved they now hate, and what they once hated they now love.
That's an IDENTITY change, he says. That happens when you No Longer See Yourself as a drug addict.
He goes on to say, "Think about it. Isn't there something in your life that you would just never do? I mean NEVER. You wouldn't do it because its not part of your Identity. Its not part of your beliefs about Who You Are."
He said, "We've gotta perceive ourselves in a different way. Not just our Capabilities, but Who We Are, RIGHT NOW. Not Some Day, but TODAY.
"That shift begins the minute you begin to CONSCIOUSLY define yourself, instead of letting the environment do it For you."
He shares a little bit about his "formative" years and how what's called the Pygmalian Effect figured into it. In the third grade he attended a very strict school and everyone memorized the multiplication tables there. Well, midway through the year he was transferred to a different school, one that was just Starting to learn the multiplication tables. He shares how he aced all the math tests due to this, all the strokes he got from his teacher, how he was allowed to go to the library to work on independant studies while the other kids in his class were sweating over learning the tables. He decided to study light and how light works. The teacher was fascinated by his research and encouraged him all the more. Well, long story short, he soon became known as the kid with all the answers and eventually was moved into a special class and labeled a "Gifted Youth."
"If you didn't get that gift of being labeled "gifted" earlier, why don't you give yourself that gift right Now? We're ALL gifted. All it is is a darn Label.
"So many kids get negative labels because they merely have different learning strategies/styles that weren't catered to. But they've Accepted them, and grown up with them as part of their identity.
"And that label doesn't just affect their ability to Learn. It affects their self-image, their sense of self-worth, it affects the way they look at their Whole Lives!"
We will behave consistent with our identity even if our identity is Negative, so we must be Very Careful about what we buy into.
He then goes into some strategies regarding the how-to of changing our "identity," some practical stuff that there's really no room to go into here.
- - -
I've thought about these concepts quite a bit over the last few days and i gotta say, they're making sense to me.
It has also struck me that women seem to have had a jump-start on this. The whole phenomena of "reinventing yourself" that permeates a lot of women's literature seems to deal largely with the issue; and they've been doing it for years and years.
My question is, am i missing something guys?
Do i have the power to do what he said?
I mean, right now my identity consists of words like this:
I am a victim
I am hopeless
I am an addict
I am abandoned
I am helpless
I am stupid
I am worthless
I am unworthy
I am unresourcful
I am heartbroken
The concepts of identity and self-image seem very closely related, if not synonymous, in my research.
I've read of the analogy of a thermostat in regard to self image. If the "temperature" in one's life gets either too "hot" or too "cold" the subconscious thermostat automatically kicks in to regulate things back to a "normalcy" dictated by one's self-image.
For instance, its been noted that individuals will actually sabotage themselves financially in life because they don't see themselves in their mind's eye as making over, say, 35k a year, even if an opportunity is presented to them for making much, much more money with no more work. All because its just not part of their "identity" to have money or a lifestyle like that.
Which begs the question, if you envision yourself as hopelessly spiraling downward to homelessness and obscurity, as i currently do, is it inevitable to end up in just such a state?
If so, i should really be sweatin about now.
But if this stuff is true, then i should really thank my lucky stars or God or whatever for the information, cuz there's nothing i would love more than to flush that little list of "identity statements" i shared with you.
Well i'm done fellas. What do YOU think?
Full of balony, or breakthrough stuff?
--Gary
