Reprogramming ... Getting in touch with our inner child ... Exploring the far reaches of our memory ... Excavating our authentic self ... Clearing out the clutter that has held us back ... THAT all sounds good but it all can be pretty overwhelming too, especially if we don't really know or understand what it is we need to do. I think I had to hear a lot of things several different ways before I really GOT it so don't feel bad if it's not crystal clear right away!
Dr. Phil (Dr. Phillip C. McGraw, Ph.D. - you know, Oprah's Dr. Phil) talked about several aspects of uncovering our authentic selves on Oprah, in O MAGAZINE and in his best-selling book,
SELF-MATTERS
Creating Your Life From The Inside Out
by Dr. Phillip C. McGraw, Ph.D.
I don't want to diminish the effect that his book could have on you if you were to read it yourself. The dust jacket gives a good overview of this book:
Your life has a root core that, once understood, unlocks a powerful force to create your life the way it was meant to be. Key questions and an amazingly clear "map" are now at your fingertips to begin your journey to "Live by design". These are questions that, with the help of this book, you can answer and bring into action-oriented focus:
- What are the ten most defining moments of your life?
- What are the seven most critical choices you have made to put you on your current path?
- Who are the five most pivotal people in your world and how have they shaped you?
Through his books, McGraw has changed the lives of millions. In introducing the world to his matter-of-fact, tell-it-like-it-is philosophy of life, Dr. Phil, as he isknown to his legions of fans, has put an end to the "everyone's a victim" attitude that had taken hold of our culture. Published in over twenty-five countries, and with millions of books sold, his two number one bestsellers, LIFE'S STRATEGIES and RELATIONSHIP RESCUE, forced readers to take a serious look at the excuses they had so long been clinging to as to why they were not happy, not successful, and not enjoying their own chance at living.
Now, Dr. Phil takes those lessons a great leap further and explores one of the most challenging questions facing us all:
When you look in the mirror, who is truly hiding beneath that face?
Instead of taking a surface look at the way we live our lives, Dr. Phil demystifies how your self-concept came to be and gives a nuts-and-bolts approach to creating a new plan for living and, in turn, for discovering THE REAL YOU.
In this ground-breaking work, Dr. Phil challenges you to find your "authentic self" - that person you once were before life took it's toll. It is you at your greatest, most fulfilled, and most real moment. It is the person you have always wanted to be, but were too distracted, busy, or scared to become.
Instead, you have created a "fictional self" - taking on the identity of who you believe you are supposed to be, the person people tell you that you are. The incongruence between these two selves is what leads you to feel that your life is incomplete, unbalanced, and altogether more difficult than it really should be.
The good news is it no longer needs to be that way. By using the plan set forth in SELF MATTERS, Dr. Phil helps you to demystify your self-concept and learn how to reclaim your authentic self. In evaluating your life by only the facts, you can learn to think beyond the excuses and fears that have masked the person you have always wanted to be.
SELF MATTERS is one of the most forward-thinking works on self concept and self esteem ever published. For the first time, an author tells it how it is and, inthe process, teaches us all how to live the lives we have always wanted but prevented ourselves from living. We got only one chance in this world, and now, Dr. Phil shows all how to make the most of it.
I flipped open the book and saw a quote that felt right:
"The life that is unexamined is not worth living."
- Plato
Let me share some things that spoke to me ... not the whole book, but a good start on what Dr. Phil has to say about THE REAL YOU ...
Life is supposed to get BETTER, because we are supposed to get BETTER at it!
You're so busy doing stuff you didn't choose and probably wouldn't choose that you don't even think about what you do want, need, and care about anymore ... Do you fail to exercise, go back to school, change jobs, confront your dead marriage, get a date, get a hobby, or deal with the pain of abuse or neglect that has scarred you from childhood? If so, you can't possibly be living in concert with who you were originally designed to be. If your life is dominated by constant anxiety and worry, but you don't do a damn thing to change it, that, too, is a bad sign.
In order for you to effectively figure out and map out how to get to where you want to go, you have to first know exactly where you are starting. Where you are now, everything you are, everything you do, begins with and is based on what I call your personal truth. By personal truth, I mean whatever it is that you, at the absolute, uncensored core of your being, have come to believe about you. This personal truth is critical, because if you believe it, if it is real to you, then it is for you the precise reality that you will live every day.
Unless and until you confront your personal truth you will never, ever have a chanceto be the person you can be. You,like every other living person, get mixed and faulty messages from the world and from all of your experiences in it.
When you see how few events have so powerfully dictated who and what you have become, you are going to be absolutely shocked!
You cannot change what you do not acknowledge.
Not living faithfully to your authentic self creates a void, an everpresent feeling that you are incomplete. You find yourself wondering whether you should be doing something different with your life. There's a restlessness, a yearning emptiness that won't go away. It's as if you have a hole in your soul. You may try to fill that hole in any number of ways: by smoking or drinking: by incessant working; by over-investing yourself in a mate or children. Maybe you sit down and eat a chocolate cake with a half gallon of ice cream ... have kids ... get married ... get divorced ... get a new job ... You cast about to find something, anything to fill that hole in your heart.
At times, you may feel very, very lonely. Strangely, even when you're in the midst of people, there is an ache of separation. You talk to others, but never feel totally listened to. You may feel misunderstood, even when you are brave enough to risk sharing your feelings ... Bottom line: There is seldom a time in your life when all is at peace and in balance.
A lot of what I have written is directed towards victims who are becoming survivors ... and it is true that we may feel especially vulnerable, at times. But Dr. Phil didn't write this book for victims or survivors. He wrote it for EVERYBODY! When I read this, I heard the TRUTH. EVERYBODY has something that really hurt them in their past, and EVERYBODY thinks they suffered ... in SOME way! I am not trying to take away one ounce of anyone's pain. I am not diminishing any of our situations. I know that whatever happened hurt like hell. I hurt too. OUR HURT WAS REAL but getting hurt doesn't set us apart or make us special at all! What sets us apart is how WE GET OVER IT! We are in the position to let this pain transform us into stronger, more resilient people ... tried and tested ... a little wiser ... a LOT stronger ...
You have certain core traits, qualities, gifts, talents, needs, and desires. You have a core purpose for being in this world. By suppressing who you were meant and need to be, you are doing something entirely unnatural ... Because your life energy is being diverted and therefore depleted, you are compromised mentally, emotionally, spiritually and physically ... It takes so much energy to be what you are not. It takes little to be who you truly are.
I am serious about you getting REAL about you and how dramatically your life can change when you reclaim an incredible power that you may not even know that you have lost. You are better than you are living. You are capable of more than you have and are experiencing. You can make your life hum if you will link up your true self and your world. To do that, you have to get in touch with you.
I'm challenging you, starting now, to stop dealing in opinions or assumptions, and start dealing in facts.
That means no untested assumptions. I guess what I'm telling you is that you cannot just automatically trust that you have been, or are currently being objective about you. Just because you have believed something for a long time or have convinced yourself that you just "are" a certain way doesn't even almost make it true. You have to be willing to challenge virtually every single thing you ever believed about yourself. For example, if you have for a very long time felt that you were inferior or a second-class citizen, where is the proof? If you had to argue your second-classed-ness in a court of law, could you do it? Is it fact, or is it just some opinion you have carried for a long time? Let's agree to use the "Joe Friday approach," from the old show DRAGNET; "Just the facts, ma'am, just the facts."
Now, that may sound easy, but you need to recognize that when it comes to dealing with yourself, all of your momentum may be the other way; it may have been years since you dealt only in facts. Remember, a lie unchallenged becomes the truth. You've either been told, or told yourself, some of this crap for so long you just automatically believe it.
I watch people get suckered time after time. Some jerk (a.k.a. boyfriend, mother-in-law, boss, skinny friend, etc.) will level some vague and unfounded criticism, and because we haven't done the work to amass the facts, we buy into it and stick it right dead center in our self concept. We even do it to ourselves, with our own opinions! Opinions are only opinions, and opinions can be changed. What I want to help you do is stop dealing with opinions about yourself, and instead get in touch with the facts about yourself.
Once you know the facts, you'll engage the world in an entirely different way. You'll stop saying to yourself, I have to earn my right to be here by being clever, rich, funny, pretty, anything. Instead, you'll communicate to the world, I have the right to be here, because I know from the inside out that I have qualities that are worthy of your acceptance.
If you're committed to deal in "just the facts", now is a good time to lay some essential ones out on the table:
FACT: Every one of us, you included, has within us everything we will ever need to be, do, and have anything and everything we will ever want and need.
FACT: Your authentic self is there, it has always been there, and it is fully accessible to you. You are not the exception to this fact. There are no exceptions.
FACT: The self that now runs your life didn't just happen. It is the result of:
- Certain key events that you have experienced in your life, your external factors; and
- A process of reaction and interpretations that happens within you, your internal factors.
FACT: Your life is not a dress rehearsal.
(the book then has a self test and 3 questions that begin the journey to self-discovery - excellent start)
"What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
You are either contributing to or contaminating all of your relationships ... As we move forward you must remain cognizant of the fact that you are doing one or the other all the time.
The past reaches into the present, and programs the future, by your recollections and your internal rhetoric about what you perceived to have happened in your life.
You tell yourself what you have been told, so persistently and destructively, by others in your life ... KNOW YOUR HISTORY SO YOU CAN WALK OUT OF IT.
You can become a star; the star of your own life. You can, you should, and you will. However grandiose it may sound, I believe that this world was designed with you in mind. I believe that you have a special place in the order of life, a particular role to fill. And yes, it is one filled with vision, passion and power. So hang on and get ready to get way more consciously into your own life. If you are fully in touch with your authentic self, you wouldn't be apologetically thinking, Hey, it's just me - no big deal. You would be thinking, Hey, this is MY LIFE we're talking about, and I want my shot! I want to be the star in my own life.
Let's revisit the two big categories that were mentioned briefly earlier: external and internal factors. It is in the development and interactions of these two categories that the self-concept is created.
EXTERNAL FACTORS are events, experiences, and consequences that shape your self-concept from the outside ...
Some of the most powerful external factors are those I call DEFINING MOMENTS. Your defining moments may include episodes of trauma or tragedy; maybe they are instances of victory or perseverance. It is those few moments, a surprisingly small number, that may have well shaped the entire rest of your life.
You have also made a number of CRITICAL CHOICES. When reflecting on your personal history, you should also be able toidentify a handful of critical choices, choices you've made that have shaped the remainder of your life. Along with the defining moments and critical choices, you have also encountered a small number of PIVOTAL PEOPLE who have shaped you positively and negatively. Identifying who those people are, and what role they have played in forming your personal truth and self-concept, will be a key element of getting in control of your future life quality.
Your self-concept is impacted by another set of factors, as well: the INTERNAL FACTORS, reactions that you create within you in response to the world ... the things you tell yourself, the things you believe about yourself, all of the internal dialogue that shapes your self-concept. It's in the choices you make. It's under your control. There is no reality ... only perception ... What is true about you in your mind ... you will live. If you believe you are inferior, inadequate, worthless, incompetent, you will live DOWN to that truth. If you believe that you are the opposite of that, you will live UP to that truth. If you think you can or think you cannot, you are probably right!
SELF MATTERS continues to take you gently ... at your own pace ... through the process of discovering who you are and how you got to this place, and as Dr. Phil so aptly put it:
KNOW YOUR HISTORY
SO YOU CAN WALK OUT OF IT.
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