Improving Your Self-Image - II

Improving Your Self-Image - II

Step 2. Forgive yourself. (And this is even harder than Step 1.)

Learn to look into a mirror and say, "Don't change, I love you just as you are."

This is the basis of Step 2. You can do it for yourself. Look into a mirror and imagine a dark cloud around your heart. (This cloud is the painful part of your life.) When you breathe in, breathe that dark cloud into yourself, and breathe out in its place your joy, your peace, your serenity, your happiness. Continue breathing in and out. Do it not only for yourself, but for others as well, and see what a difference it will make in your life.

Here's an example. There's a magnificent meditational practice from Tibet called Kundalin. Joan Borysenko once suggested it at a conference in Boston. She described how the Dalai Lama responded when asked how he felt about the Chinese (who murdered the priests, raped the nuns, practically destroyed Tibetan civilization in order to break the will of the people). His response was "I try to take in their pain and give back my joy and peace."

Step 3. Always see yourself at your best. Expect the best in yourself.

This step I want to emphasize. When you read this book, simply expect that you will be the best when you have finished. One of the golden keys to success is to act as if failure were impossible. This way you override all the negativity that has been drummed into your subconscious. You were inundated with it from your culture, your parents and teachers, your neighbors, and your education (not to mention your religion, which is one of the greatest programmers and conditioners we have, despite its enormous benefits).

How often did you come home from school with an A on your report card to be greeted with "Why not an A+?" We are simply not good enough! Always expect the best of yourself. This posture of expectancy will actually move you in the direction of what's best in you. And it will start happening to you the day you try it.

There was a story in the news about a little girl who was unable to smile because the muscles in her face wouldn't respond. The doctors operated, and happily she is able to smile today. It is a known medical fact that exercising the muscles of the face employed in smiling can have a salutary effect on the rest of your well-being. Your life really is directed by your subconscious mind most of the time. What you are doing is planting the seed of cheerfulness in your subconscious mind, where it will have its effect during the day.

Step 4. Stop comparing yourself with others. Go at your own pace.

Some will be ahead, some behind. Just go at your own speed.

A further way to program anything you desire into your subconscious is simply to breathe in deeply and then relax your entire being and say, Relax now. Do it a second time, and then a third time. Then breathe three times and say, Wide awake now. Then do the breathing and relaxing, and when you are completely relaxed, suggest to yourself that today you remain cheerful no matter what happens. Watch how your subconscious mind will operate even when difficult things occur during the day.

An interesting footnote to this point was made by Norman Cousins (author of ) in an interview he had with Tony Robbins in Tony's "Power Talk" series. Cousins described students who took blue and red pills, one a super calmer, one a super exciter, but the contents were reversed. The students were told that the blue pills had the chemicals that produced calm. (Really the red pills had the calming chemicals.) Fifty percent of the students experienced what their expectations led them to believe, proving that mind was more powerful in these instances than was the drug. Of course, this is the principle underlying the use of placebos in medical practice.

Another variation on this idea is Tony's story of the teachers who were told by professional examiners that the students they would teach were "spurters," children who would advance very quickly in their lessons. The professionals had determined this by the tests they had given. At the end of the term, when the professionals returned to check the results, sure enough, those students designated as spurters had advanced rapidly. But the professionals admitted that the results of the tests were doctored. There were no spurters. The children advanced because their teachers "expected" them to advance. And of course this expectation was transmitted to the students continually throughout the term.

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