Personal Development – Lesson Three
Self-empowerment through self-awareness
This lesson will focus on additional elements that support your Self-Image development.
Please remember that any mental and emotional resistance you experience from your thoughts and others needs to be written down and dismissed through the notebook exercise.
Hopefully, you have been doing the Self-Image exercise three to five times a day and further developing your incredible visualization of the best version of you achievable. Keep trying to bring yourself to a specific future location in your mind.
Practice feeling that you are actually there, physically present as that future best version of you.
Earlier we discussed how the subconscious takes everything we focus our attention on literally. In your mind, as you see and feel yourself in a place doing something, just like watching a movie or TV, a video or reading a book, as your mind becomes more fully engage and immersed n that fictional reality so does your subconscious. Again it cannot distinguish between fantasy and reality or time and space. This is why our emotions and automated behaviors are engaged and active as we watch a movie and start feeling emotionally engaged in the characters and storyline.
Additional detail suggestions for the self-image visualization exercise
Feel the temperature of the place you are in. Is there a breeze or the air is calm? Feel the clothes on your body. Look down at your feet. Do you have shoes, sandals or bare feet? Are you wearing jewelry? If so what does it look like? If you are wearing a watch what time is it there? Define and describe the location where you are at. Are you standing or sitting on the grass, concrete, wood, carpet, etc…? Are you close to a road, in a park, on a sidewalk, in a house, or at a restaurant waiting to be seated? Perhaps you are in a neighborhood park, on a mountain trail, by a pond, lake or stream.
Where ever you are, see more details. See yourself doing things that interest you. Maybe you’re holding a really good book you discovered at a used book store earlier in the day. Look down at the cover of the book and read the title. What does it say? What is it about? Perhaps you are listening to music. Is it from a device you are holding, maybe it’s a street performer, or coming from the restaurant you are sitting in? See yourself surrounded by other amazing supportive people. What are they wearing? Notice the sincerity of their smiles as they pass a glance your way while they are talking to others. Focus on adding more details to the environment in your self-image exercise.
In the first lesson, you were asked to select one of the high human traits from the Self-Image worksheet and focus on the emotions from that experience during each self-image exercise. Then you were asked to feel the self-empowering emotions of appreciation and gratitude from others during that visualization, magnifying the emotional intensity of those emotions by five or ten and add that powerful emotional energy to your self-image. Whatever that looks like to you.
Then notice the before and after affects of the best version of you as you apply that highly charged positive supporting emotional energy to you in the future as the new best version of you. Notice how more sensitive and completely receptive you are to accepting and owning powerful emotional states of acceptance that you are all of the high human traits you chose. You see yourself feeling stronger, more loving, honest, open-minded, kind, confident, compassionate, charitable, and much more respectful towards yourself and others. See yourself moving fully into the body of the new updated best version of you stands up tall, head held high with confidence and strength knowing you can do anything you set your mind to and make an immovable commitment to. Notice that as you feel more self-empowered that the new best version of you appears to be shedding small sparkles from your body. The more you embody and feel the incredible greatness of who you really are, that more and more of these sparkles by the hundreds and then thousands are leaving your body. Then a sudden moment of incredible clarity comes to your mind. Every single one of the thousands of sparkles leaving your body is one of the millions of dysfunctional subconscious memory triggers that were expressed by others and recorded by your subconscious no longer belong to and disappear as they hit the ground. As they leave the beautiful, loving, respectful, grateful, compassionate, and kind version of you, you feel a little lighter, more confident, more capable, and more self-assured. Now you come to a stark and profound understanding. Everyone you know and love, everyone you pass on the street throughout your travels is all trapped with the millions of dysfunctional automated behaviors that their subconscious recorded and expresses beyond their ability to control them are negatively influencing and impact their lives and those they interact with. However, at some point, you too will be able to help some of them.
Suddenly it all makes perfect sense to you. These dysfunctional memory behaviors that came from all of the people, places and things that negatively emotionally influenced you, caused your subconscious like everyone else’s to record these observations and experiences as automated responses. These dysfunctional, limiting, debilitating, sabotaging and self-destructive behaviors were never yours. They do not belong to you. They are falling off your body because they do not serve any meaningful purpose in your life. They cannot remain in a body of incredible self-love, kindness, gratitude, respect, compassion, and charity. So they simply fall away. Forever, out of your life.
This lesson has 3 elements.
The next steps will focus on applying the high human traits from your worksheet to yourself and others in your mind to practice getting comfortable expressing them with yourself and others in real life.
Let’s talk about what we perceive or think friendship means to us.
Merriam-Websters dictionary defines a friend as 1a: one attached to another by affection or esteem.
I would suggest that common social and varying personal definitions expand the meaning when we add the words “great friend” or “best friend”. This expanded meaning can include but is not limited to: someone attached to another by affection, esteem, love, fondness, mutual respect, compassion, charity, and commonalities of heart, mind, and purpose.
This expanded definition gives us the opportunity to consider and perhaps redefine and enhance what a great friend or best friend means to us.
Here is a short writing exercise to help you begin redefining what a great friend or best friend means to you.
This exercise requires you to sit quietly and sincerely ask yourself: “What do I think and feel are the most important qualities, supportive behaviors, and high human traits possible I would love, respect and appreciate in a great or best friend?”
On a blank sheet of paper create three categories or columns. At the top of each column write the categories. Qualities, behaviors, and traits. Then begin considering what you really want in a great or best friend.
If you have already defined this in your life and are able to attract these kinds of wonderful people into your life that’s great. I am very happy for you. It is important to share time and positive experiences with them. Most people do not have these kinds of loving respectful and supportive people in their lives. For those who have not had these kinds of people in their lives, there is a reason.
It is challenging to attract to you what you think you want but cannot properly define it. Just like in lesson two, it is nearly impossible to correct or fix something you cannot properly define. Otherwise, how do you know you’re addressing the right issue?
This exercise will not only help you redefine what a great friend or best friend is but help you attract quality people into your life. I realize some of you may think this approach mystical or magic involving belief and faith. I can quite assure you there is none of this in real life. It is purely mathematical. In reality, you will be working with the mechanical structure of your physiology and subconscious to begin attracting to you what you desire most.
There are very simple observable mechanical aspects of the universe that interact with the human condition which manifests a portion of our moment to moment perception of our daily reality. Without getting too technical, suffice it to say that you have been using these mechanics your entire life. It is a primary function of our subconscious. In fact, you can easily look into your past to see these mechanics at work and the effects of their influence. You can also observe them in action every day of your life and that of others if you know what you’re looking for. These are the same mechanics that allowed for and caused to you acquire useful information, learn behaviors and skillset through muscle memory repetition, achieve and obtain every object of interest and person of affection and friendship, reach every one of your destinations, and supported you in completing every goal or desired outcome you experienced.
Back to the exercise: Pull out as many memories from your past as needed where you had great to exceptional experiences with others you regarded as a friend. Write down their best qualities, traits, and supportive behaviors.
Once you complete the list of desired qualities, traits, and supportive behaviors begin adding them to your visual exercises. Also, start treating yourself and your own best friend. Be kind, loving, respectful, caring, compassionate, and charitable to yourself. You will discover the more you treat yourself this way, the better you will start feeling towards yourself. When you wake up in the morning and go before a mirror, smile and wish yourself to have a great day. Maybe even say, ” I believe in your and thank you so much for taking the time to improve the q2uality of our life.”
Again, it is important to fully understand that each one of us is comprised of 50 to 70 trillion cells and microorganisms. Each one genetically programmed to perform specific functions that help maintain your physiology so you can continue your human experience. You could look at it as an environmental suit of sorts. Much in the same way a deep-sea diver or astronaut requires a specialized suit to maintain life in those harsh environments. Is the earth environment any different? We never question it because it all feels so natural to us. And yet we can easily observe that when something goes wrong with the human-environmental suit we begin to suffer the effects, influence, and impact of the external environment on the body.
So for example, if you want a friend who you can trust to be honest with you when you share new ideas and concepts, then start trusting yourself and be as honest with your thoughts, emotions, and behaviors as you can. So as you travel throughout your day and you observe a negative thought, emotion, or undesirable or dysfunctional behavior, just know your best friend would point that out because they love and have your best interests in mind.
Then when you interact with others you can start incorporating those fine elements into your relationships.
Learn what it’s like to be your own best friend so when you engage in friendship with others you will know how to treat them with the same degree of respect as you treat yourself. Besides, how do you know what a great or best friend is if you have not experienced it? Perhaps in a similar way of redefining the best version of you, you can also redefine over time what a great or best friend means. Then when you start treating yourself like your best friend you can be a better friend with others.
As you get into your daily visualizations begin seeing the new best version of you treating you with the utmost of respect, kindness, compassion, and charity with a confident light-hearted awareness saying out loud, “I got this!” or “I own this!”.
Then after each of your visualizations start expressing the same best friend behaviors, traits, and qualities you envisioned towards yourself when the thoughts occur throughout the day.
The first element is learning to be your own best friend by applying the high human traits to yourself.
To further develop your self-image and start getting to know yourself please do the following:
Every morning when you wake up and every evening before bed go to the bathroom, bedroom, or other location in private where there is a large mirror and stand in front of it.
Take a deep breath and sincerely smile to yourself.
Then as sincerely as you can, look deeply into your eyes and tell yourself in a way that is most meaningful to you, how much YOU appreciate and are grateful for YOU making the effort and taking the time to improve the quality of your life. Then close with either “Tomorrow is going to be another great day,” before bed or “Today is going to be a great day,” in the morning.
I do not care how silly it feels or sounds. Do it anyway. You can thank me later if you want.
It is important to note here that you are not just talking to yourself or a mirror. Again, you are expressing deep emotional appreciation, gratitude, and support for the 50 to 70 trillion cells and life-supporting organisms that make up your body. Each one of these cells and supporting organisms is programmed to perform important functions in your body so you can continue to experience life as a human being. Depending on the quality of your thoughts and how well you treat your support team that is your body with nutritional intake determines how they perform and how quickly they can respond to changing conditions in your mental, emotional, and physical environments. It is important to note here that our consciousness, cognitive reasoning functions, and subconscious automated responses are heavily influenced by this enormous life support team.
Let’s look at this from another perspective. The 50 to 70 trillion members of our body’s support team get their changing operation instructions from two predominant and identifiable influences. First, genetic programming. This determines the vast majority of our basic physical structure, maintenance, and other involuntary internal processes that help keep us alive and mobile. Second, is our subconscious and or unconscious programming which functions more like supercomputer systems management software.
This genetic organizational programming allows all cells and beneficial organisms in the body to communicate with the systems management software to ensure the functional operation, including crisis management rapid response protocols and behaviors for nearly everything the human condition will encounter. This system of communication system mostly comprised of neurons, neural networks, including the nervous system. Other than genetic programming, the subconscious gets most of its operational information and instructions that allow us to interact with changing physical and social environments by monitoring our thought streams and information received through your five senses and developing intuition.
All that information and operational instructions are transmitted throughout the body via chemical combinations and interactions and electromagnetic synaptic signaling to all the cells and organisms involved in performing functions related to the current perceived environmental changes. At the same time, our life support team and secondary systems are doing their best to anticipate immediate and future needs and potential changes based on relevant stored memory information. Therefore, we can observe that there are tens to hundreds of trillions of chemical and synaptic processes occurring every second of every day that is directly related to actual or perceived changes in our physical and social environments. It’s important to understand these complexities to establish a little more appreciation, gratitude, and respect for the body we have to navigate our personal human experience.
As stated elsewhere in this course, our perceptions of reality do not have to be real or true in order for all these physiological changes to take place. They are automatic and involuntary. Again, the subconscious takes all information literally. It is not genetically programmed to differentiate between fantasy and reality, or space and time. Our conscious mind makes those determinations. No matter how accurate, crude and fundamental they are. The collective of our cells, organisms, genetic programming, chemical, and electromagnetic elements that make up the subconscious, which is our quantum connection to the human experience, each other, all life in nature, and the physical-mechanical universe we temporality inhabit. In short, our subconscious and biological support team, as well as all of our memory behavior programming from our past, automate, control, and influence everything moment of our lives.
Then we can look at all the variations of communication signals we send and receive when we interact with others. If the signals we receive from others are positive it changes our biochemistry to release the chemical combinations that make us physically feel good. This effects and impacts our emotions, additional supporting thoughts, alters our perceptions of reality slighting and modifies our mood until another internal or external environmental change occurs to alter it. As well, when the current release of body chemicals begins to fade so do the feelings.
Every single emotion we feel is governed by a specific combination of chemicals and electrical synaptic signaling. This means that when we feel happiness there is a specific combination of chemicals and synaptic signaling that interact with the senses that cause us to experience happiness. If we pay attention to when different emotions begin we can actually feel the changes as they are occurring. Ever notice when someone or something happens in your life and you start to feel the emotions of anger or sadness start to well up inside you. It feels like some form of pressure building to release an outburst or tears?
We can easily observe this behavior by paying attention to how we watch tv shows or movies. This happens every time we watch the news and hear about a storm that injured or killed hundreds of people in a community where friends and family live. We immediately feel the release of these chemicals building up inside quickly modifying our emotions and filling our minds with thoughts of concern, fear, anxiety, depression, and a sense of urgency. This causes us to react and express our urgent concern by making calls to our loved ones to see if they are ok and safe. After a few calls, we discover everyone is ok and suddenly start feeling better because the chemical make up in the blood has been altered by our thoughts and new perceptions of reality to that event. Now chemical combinations are being produced and released along with different synaptic signaling so we feel relieved, reducing anxiety and stress. We may even experience joy and laughter. The same is true when we watch a movie or tv show where something funny is happening. The funny joke or situation is revealed and we instantly feel chemical releases and synaptic signaling that animates your body into laughter.
This is why it is important to learn how to quickly adjust the focus of our attention to something more positive which affects a supportive change to our body chemistry. The calmer and more focused we are the greater selection of available options our subconscious can choose from. Then it presents its selections to our conscious mind so we can consider one or more for the best possible outcomes. This is also why it’s important we understand how to effectively trace cause and effect in our life. It helps us learn from our past thoughts, options, choices, and decisions to more accurately see how and why desirable or undesirable events occur and unfolded in our lives.
Self-empowerment through self-awareness
The second element is learning to trace unpleasant and pleasant events in our lives to see how and why they occurred resulting in those specific outcomes.
We can start with what we ate for lunch or dinner yesterday. If we think back we can see we were doing something that was occupying our time. As time passed something in our body or someone signaled you were hungry.
Think about the food choices that passed through your mind at that time.
Where any of the food options really appealing or just ok?
Why did you choose to eat one thing over another?
Were other people places or things influencing and affecting which options were available and the final choice?
While eating did we eat aggressively, casually or pick at the food. Why? What if anything was influencing the way we ate?
When the meal was finished was there a feeling of satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the food or other elements in the experience?
Did we fill energized after eating or drowsy?
Did the meal upset our stomach?
If the meal could have been better, how?
Did the meal cause us to continue liking that food choice or alter our perception so we might not want to eat it again for a while?
Did the meal in any way affect work, interactions with others or other activities throughout the day? If so how and why?
If we apply similar lines of questions to other past events in our lives it will help us better understand how and why desirable or undesirable experiences played out in our lives.
Example. Today Daniel had an argument with a co-worker. The co-worker called me lazy in jest with a smile while passing my desk because they saw me reading a message on my phone instead of working. What the co-worker didn’t know is I was on a break. But, I didn’t go to the company break room. So I commented sharply at him to mind his own business I’m on a break. Then I scratched a rash I’ve had on my right leg for years. The co-worker made a sarcastic comment back that I should be in the break room when on break. This way people will know your status. Again, I sharply spoke that the company rules do not say I have to take a break in any specific place. Go mind your own damn business, keep your comments to yourself, and stop wasting my break with your stupidity.
Daniel realized later that evening while doing the Cause and Effect exercise and playing back the event with his co-worker that his break had been over for 10 minutes. The co-worker was trying to point that out in a humorous way. Daniel misunderstood his intentions because he was thinking about an argument he had with parents the previous day. His overreaction was based on several factors. His father used to tell him when he was lazy and wouldn’t amount to anything. This always made Daniel angry. The scratching appeared to start while he was angry with his dad as a teenager after another lazy comment. Daniel recalled he had scraped his leg on a wooden picnic table at the park by his house one day while he was outside fuming about how much he hated his father for continuing to make such hurtful comments. Daniel’s mother was overprotective and insisted he should be extra careful with everything he did. This always caused him to feel fearful and apprehensive about trying new things or seeking new and better jobs. This is why Daniel is currently working at a place he hates but needs the money to pay bills.
After working through the items Daniel listed earlier in the day using and the notebook exercise he was able to identify and question the core automated behaviors he experienced. After using the dismissive indignance tool to power-down and release core behaviors he expressed during that day’s event he feels so much better. A week later he noticed that his leg hasn’t been itchy and the rash is fading.
In this example, we can immediately see there are subc0nscious automated responses from his past that were negatively affecting him. We can also see the influences of the subconscious that was limiting his response options and causing his thoughts, emotions, and comments to be negatively impacted. This also affected his physiology in negative ways. Later, he was able to trace the rash on his leg to the anger he felt towards his dad and the lazy comment while he scraped his leg on the picnic table years earlier. Since the subconscious is partially responsible for manifesting what we perceive is our reality every emotional event in our lives can cause the subconscious to record the thoughts, emotions, behaviors, and elements in the experience into automated responses for future use.
We see from this example just how past experiences influence and impact our future. Multiply this by millions of experiences and subconscious programs and we can begin seeing how cause and effect play an important role as a tool in our lives to solve and resolve issues we experience.
Self-empowerment through self-awareness
While the human condition is highly complex there are short cuts to improving the quality of life and the quality of our experiences. If you want to continually improve your self-image it’s important to understand who and what’s involved in the process. The cause and effect exercise allows us to more accurately pinpoint underdeveloped high human traits we want to more fully incorporate into our daily lives. Once we have identified the desired traits, they can be added to our daily visualization by seeing in our minds us respectfully and lovingly express them towards ourselves and others.
Redundant but important! The first short cut is to realize that our Quality of life begins and ends with our thoughts.
The second short cut is knowing that the human condition operates on millions of genetic, acquired, and learned muscle memory behaviors, observations, and experiences that are stored for future use as behavior responses. Understanding the mechanics involved in recording new memories and updating older ones help to put into perspective the cause and effect we experience every day of our lives but are barely aware of.
The third shortcut is knowing you can learn how to consciously change the dysfunctional and undesirable automated responses and become the best version of you possible.
The third element involves developing new or improved automated behaviors that best support your communication and interactions with others and nature.
For the next week please practice this mental image exercise several times a day. For those who don’t have problems communicating and expressing high human traits, please do this exercise anyway. This exercise like the others in this course can help you develop new or enhanced conscious and automated skillsets. These will help you create better automated subconscious filters and responses. These filters can help you enhance your self-control, reduce anxiety and stress, and enhance your reasoning ability while reducing negative and dysfunctional influences in your life. As well, improve the number and quality of options available for effective decision making.
In your daily travels select people to briefly focus your attention on. In your mind see yourself expressing one or more of the high human traits from your worksheet to them. Maybe, start with a smile and work up to kindness, respect, compassion, and charity. In your mind see them responding with a smile of appreciation and gratitude as you interact with them. Maybe discover through conversation with them you have things in common or shared interests. The people you choose can be someone you know or strangers. If you feel moved in real life to express the traits please do. However, the focus here is on using your mind to see yourself easily and effortlessly express high human traits from your worksheet to others.
The point here is to use repetition to build and enhance the brain’s wiring to form the automated behavior that allows you to easily and effortlessly express these high human traits towards others. Again, in the same way, we build muscle mass and core physical strength.
For those who have difficulty expressing themselves and communicating a meaningful message here are some suggestions.
In your mind see you and the person you feel anxious or nervous around calmly having a kind and respectful conversation. Practice this for several days to a week before approaching this person in real life. As with most professions like entertainment, sports, engineering, sales, and marketing being able to walk through mental scenarios many times allows us to work out the problems and envision solutions before we perform them in the real world.
Visualizing communication and relationship interactions with others in our mind is also a useful tool to discover and identify more dysfunctional subconscious behaviors that need to be dismissed. Keep your notebook handy during these exercises to take note of your discoveries.
Then use the notebook exercise on the triggers you discover during the experiences in your mind. Then when you do this in real life you will find it much easier to communicate and express yourself having worked through the self-limiting and debilitating automated triggers and responses.
Self-empowerment through self-awareness
Final thoughts on this lesson.
About seven years ago I wondered if I could experience seven consecutive good to great days in a row. The first time I was able to achieve this I was pleasantly surprised. I realized through previous studies in biochemistry that my internal pharmacy released lots of positive behavior forming chemicals into my bloodstream. This made me want more of these positive chemical-based emotions and feelings. This led me to want two consecutive weeks of good to great days in a row. Then I made it a game. The first goal was for a month. Then three months. For the record, I had some experiences that caused me to start over several times. However, what appeared to be setbacks only strengthened my resolve. I started thinking if I can go three I could do six months and then a year. Now, this doesn’t mean that I was free from the challenges life and relationships have to offer. It means that I learned how to manage every event in a way I was able to peacefully and respectfully resolve the issues while greatly reducing the subconscious dysfunctional programming from negatively influencing the outcomes. Then when going to bed at night standing in front of the mirror I was able to look myself in the eyes and express appreciation and gratitude for the positive outcomes of the experiences. Then I would have a peaceful night’s sleep.
I know this may be a bit of a stretch for many to believe and understand, but as I write these lessons it’s been over six years of good to great days in a row. Feels like I’m the founding member of Attitudes Anonymous. My attitude towards experiences in life is simple. “If it doesn’t enhance the quality of my life or others and does not add to my peace of mind, I’m not interested in it.” Matter of fact. Plain and simple. Once you realize your life is controlled by others and begin eliminating their influence and creating the meaningful options and responses you want there is no turning back. Over time as you elevate in awareness you begin seeing a bigger picture that involves helping others. It starts small and then you start realizing I can do and help more. Enhancement in awareness and this kind of quality education can literally evolve Mankind past the carousel trappings of pettiness, selfishness, and greed into a new era of personal enlightenment.
The simple and yet somewhat elusive truth is, we always have options and choices in every experience we will ever have. Imagine the mind as a beautiful sandy beach with vast amounts of information, memories, millions of automated behavior responses, reasoning, creative abilities, choices, and options. Every time something changes in our lives we pick up a pinch of sand to examine relevant memories, choices, and options associated with the conditions. On this beach, we are unaware that the more negative thoughts we focus on the more negative emotions we experience. This changing body chemistry begins reducing our ability to accurately analyze conditions and information, reasoning, and create alternative options. This impact determines how much wind and rain will wash away and remove choices and options between our fingers until we are left with only one or two we clung to out of desperation. Then the subconscious plays the remaining choices as automated behaviors. In most cases, they are not the best choices and options we had on our beautiful beach. They were just the ones that didn’t get blown or washed away by our emotions.
If I don’t want the generational dysfunctional subconscious programming from others over the past ten thousand years to influence, manipulate, and control my life I have to be proactive and do something about it. Once I fully understood this truth, I passionately pursued ways to enhance my awareness and discover through research and testing effective skills and tools to change my life. You can do the same
Have a great week.
