This incident caused Christine more distress than just misreading herself. She asked, “What if other ideas I have about myself are completely wrong, too?” When I asked her to be specific, Christine said, “I was really floored that my husband and kids saw me so very differently than I saw myself. What if I’m wrong about the other ways I see myself? What if I’m not fair? What if I’m not tolerant but actually a bigot. God, what if I’m not happy?”
Christine was questioning her whole self-perception, from inconsequential ideas such as being easy-going to ideas with much bigger consequences, like being a racist or being unhappy in her marriage. Since that family dinner a few months before, my client had been unable to think about anything else; she felt like her whole self knowledge base was on shaky ground — potentially crumbling altogether.
Her biggest concern was that the framework she’d built all of her actions and decisions upon was not genuinely representative of who she was. When I asked Christine to tell me a little bit about her beliefs about herself she burst into tears. “I don’t know what I believe!” she wailed. “I used to know, but now I think I must have been completely wrong.”
“Well, let’s start with what you used to know about yourself,” I prompted.
Christine went on to list a number of characteristics but immediately negated each one. “I thought I was easy-going and funny, but it turns out I’m not. I thought I gave everyone a fair shot, but when I look back at myself I think I actually judge people; in fact, I’m probably a snob. I thought money didn’t matter to me, but when I look honestly at myself the truth is it’s really important.”
“Why is this causing you so much distress?” I asked Christine. “Aside from the obvious, what about this self-examination is so upsetting?”
“Because I don’t know who the hell I am!”
What stood out for me most in our conversation was Christine’s throw-the-baby-out-with-the-bathwater approach. Because her family saw her differently than she saw herself, she was ready to question her entire self-perception. Formerly a fairly confident woman, Christine was now wandering around in the toxic fog of low self-esteem; everything was occluded.
In an excerpt from a book called “No One Understands You and What to Do About It” by psychologist Heidi Grant Halvorson, the author writes:
The uncomfortable truth is that most of us don’t come across the way we intend. We can’t see ourselves truly objectively, and neither can anyone else. Human beings have a strong tendency to distort other people’s feedback to fit their own views. We know this intellectually, and yet we rarely seem to recognize it as it’s happening.
That others see us differently than we see ourselves is hardly shocking news, especially for a sophisticated and generally self-aware woman like Christine. Yet her extreme response suggested that an old, LoSEr version of herself had hijacked her rational mind. I suggested we begin with ways to align her knowledge of herself with the way she acted and presented herself to the world. While the two versions of herself would never match completely, there are ways to show others a version of herself that would more closely match how she saw herself.
First we had discussed how we all — every one of us — naturally reframe feedback to fit our own views. Whenever I do a psychic reading for a client, we begin when I ask the client to say his or her first name. That’s the signal for me to connect my sixth sense to theirs, and at that moment our session officially begins. Right away I get what I call a psychic snapshot of the person. It’s not a judgment or even assessment of the client’s issues — what I see in that snapshot is the lens through which he or she is perceiving feedback.
For example, in a recent reading the psychic snapshot I saw when my client Greg said his first name was the symbol of an old-fashioned egg timer, the kind that looks like a miniature hour glass. As a clairvoyant, psychic information comes to me in the form of visual symbols and it’s my job to translate that symbol into useful information for the client. So when Greg said his first name, the egg timer popped into my mind’s eye. As I focused on this symbolic timer all the information I needed came right along with it:
- it measures very short periods of time
- if you don’t turn the heat off, the egg is overdone or ruined
- it’s reliable but old-fashioned; there are more modern ways to time things
I told Greg, “For the time being, you’re likely perceiving feedback with an idea that there isn’t much time, or that things have to be done very quickly. You might also be feeling if the object of your attention doesn’t exist in a very specific time period, it might be ruined. You’ve likely been working this way for a long time, maybe since you were a kid, but even so there is a part of you that is longing to get beyond of this out-dated way of perceiving life into something more modern or up-to-date.”
Why is this perception lens important? I always tell my clients two things: first, it’s neither positive nor negative, just neutral. There probably are times when this lens sometimes works for you as well as times when it’s a handicap. The second thing I tell them is that nobody consciously puts these lenses in place; they come into being for whatever reason and usually stay with us for a while before eventually fading away, to be replaced by something different later on.
By the way, Greg could relate to this snapshot completely. He told me he was generally impatient with people, including himself. When he wanted input on a project at work, or creative ideas he had at home, he was often frustrated by how much time people took to get back to him. He often felt stressed that windows of opportunity were closing and that he’d missed chances to do fun things because of timing. Because of this lens, Greg perceived himself as a person who liked to strike while the iron was hot, but I suspect those around him perceived him as a testy, impatient person who often held his coworkers and family to an impossible standard.
I mentioned to Christine that we all have lenses through which we perceive the environments we live in. We’re barely aware of these lenses ourselves, and usually discover them when they're pointed out to us by family members or psychics. I reminded her that we ALL do this. It wasn’t a sign that she was lying or living in a fantasy world.
So how can a person like Christine make sure that how she is perceived by others is aligned as closely as possible with how she perceives herself? How can she be authentic enough that even the most self-involved person can see past their own lenses to who Christine truly is?
I believe it’s important to keep four things in mind when examining this topic:
You must understand that you, too, perceive people through your own lens, so you must be willing to reassess your ideas about others. You must realize that you might have been wrong when you thought Mrs. Smith was being snobby, or that Mr. Jones is taking too long to respond to you.
You must realize that there will always be a difference between how you see yourself and how others see you. It simply cannot be avoided, so forgive people who misinterpret you. Try again. Restate your case. Explain yourself another way if it’s that important.
You must endeavor to live in authentic expression of who you know yourself to be, even if that knowledge changes and evolves. You must recover your inherent self-esteem and trust in your own inner compass to guide you in your self-expression.
You must remember that the desire to exist and express in an authentic way is the purpose and the reward of life itself. Your job is to be you, and to waste as little energy as possible making sure others comprehend and fully accept you as you intend. Attempting to do so is attempting to manage other peoples’ feelings, a futile exercise of the LoSEr.
With these four ideas in mind, Christine began the work of recovering her inherent self-esteem. She trained herself to discreetly touch her eyeglasses frame whenever she caught herself making a critical judgment about someone she worked with or related to. This served to remind her that everyone — everyone! — had different lenses on and interacted with her differently, which helped her to be more present in those interactions and try to see the topic, idea, or situation as they did.
Christine also made an effort to remember that for every time she misunderstood someone, a person would likely misunderstand her. She cultivated patience with herself and practiced speaking deliberately and articulating her thoughts and feelings as calmly and directly as possible. Some of the most exciting benefits of this practice, according to Christine, was that she stopped saying “Yes” when she wanted to say “No,” and that she stopped initiating or getting drawn into unilateral contracts.
Using self-hypnosis, studying her own divine spirit, and contemplating her values and desires, Christine became lovingly aware of her own worthiness. She admitted to herself that she had needs, and taught herself how to meet them. She confronted her repressed and passive pessimisms, and set them free. Christine put her whole heart and soul into discovering who SHE was and wanted to be, and how early family culture had shaped her life up until that point. She took a good, hard look at why she felt, believed, and acted the way she did. Above all, Christine decided it was okay to color inside the lines, as she put it. Her role and her comfort level evolved from the easy-going, carefree escape artist of her younger days, to one who enjoyed punctuality, predictable rhythms, paying bills before they were due, and have a neat and orderly home. That was okay; her sense of self should evolve as she journeyed through her life.
Finally, Christine allowed herself to express her needs and desires, her personality and quirks, with the sole intention of expression. She said to me, “I need to color inside the lines. That is right for me at this time in my life. How other people respond to that is really none of my business. I don’t need to manage how they see me.”
In short, Christine discovered the qualities and characteristics that were hers, today. She decided it was okay to discard characteristics or labels from her earlier years if they no longer fit her. (I know about this; for some reason I was “the flaky one” in my family. Now in my mid-50’s, a very successful business woman, debt-free, healthy, fit and strong, published author, with solid relationships… whenever I go home I get the eye-rolling, wink-and-nudging, and the jokes about getting “real job.”) She was going to define herself, and having done so, express that perfect self.
If you struggle with how you want people to see you, reflect on those four points above. See if any or all can be applied to clear the toxic fog of low self-esteem. You’re here to define youself, to live your life and to let your spirit express itself. When you RISE, every day feels satisfying and fulfilling as you live without apology or self-deception. When you RISE, you don’t waste precious time managing your image because you’re living the authentic realization of your divine, eternal, and perfect Self.
No comments:
Post a Comment