Don’t Be So Heavenly You’re No Earthly Good

I sat with a new client recently for a reading. After Jane’s elderly father, a Baptist minister, passed away she’d had a very moving dream about him and became curious about the kind of existence her dad-in-spirit might be living.

We began with a contact with her dad, and after validating his identity through the evidence he shared, Jane’s father began to express his simple joy by recalling an old joke about St. Peter at the Pearly Gates. Jane had a hard time accepting this part of the contact because “Dad would never joke about God.”

“He loved everything about the Church and he always said serving God as a minister required being in a state of awe and reverence all the time,” she said. “He would never in a million years joke about Heaven or God.”

“He is filled with delight and wants to share that with you, and the best way he can do that now is with laughter,” I replied. Jane was having none of it and we ended our session soon after. As she walked away I could tell that this message had turned her off completely because she couldn’t square a light-hearted, irreverent spirit-father with the solemn and serious earth-father.

My client Kerry came for some psychic coaching. She was following an awakening interest in energy healing and looked for an intuitive action plan that would direct her towards the best modality that could certify her as “qualified.” I gave her an example at one point that was funny and silly, and she drew herself up and suddenly became very serious. “I really don’t think this is a topic to joke about,” she said. “I mean, we’re talking about the GOD FORCE here!”

Kerry watched me intently throughout our session, taking notes and doing her level best to keep the tone of our meeting serious. She was surprised I didn’t actively meditate and told me she had saged her entire home, removed all frivolous decoration, and had hung pictures of Buddha, Jesus, Quan Yin, and angels all around to remind her of the importance of keeping her mind on the GOD FORCE at all times. Whenever she said “GOD FORCE” her voice dropped to a whisper, as if the GOD FORCE might overhear her taking its name in vain.

Erin came in for spiritual coaching in her pursuit of a relationship with God. She’d grown up in a family that didn’t practice any religion and she’d never learned how to pray. She’d set up an area in her home where she lit candles and burned incense and tried to get to know God. It bothered her that her boyfriend ribbed her about her “altar” and made too much noise in the background whenever she was trying to pray. “He doesn’t realize how serious this is for me,” she said.

All three of these wonderful people were plagued by the toxic fog of low self-esteem (LoSE), though they might not consider so at first. I worked with each one a few more times after our initial meetings and and showed them how LoSE was misdirecting all of their earnest efforts. Once understood, Jane, Kerry, and Erin were able to continue pursuing their searches with more satisfaction.

LoSE frequently comes with a set of rigid rules that the LoSEr either rebels against entirely or follows with a gravitas bordering on obsession. Neither response is a surprise. Jane, Kerry, and Erin fell into the second category, toeing the spiritual line in the vain hope that simply by doing so they’d be rewarded.

In the miasma of low self-esteem, we LoSErs (I was one, too) understood that if we followed the rules for success laid out for us by our early Important Adults and Authority Figures, we’d experience happiness or at least feel that we’d earned our place in the world. Simultaneously our uniqueness and self-expression was often suppressed, minimized, or dismissed altogether until the formula for success was hammered home. We learned that following the rules made us good girls and boys, and that above all was the prize. Once we earned — and maintained — good girl/boy status, we could expect to relax just a little bit because for the moment we’d made the cut.

Entire cultures have pressured young people to fit in, from sex-role stereotyping girls away from the sciences in school to expulsion from churches or families for preferring the wrong gender. The message was “Don’t be yourself if you want to be happy. Follow these rules that make sense to us.” To do any different was to be seen as selfish, weird, anarchic, or subversive. To do so came with the classic LoSEr mantle of shame.

When LoSE has your personal sense of value so warped as to feel almost nonexistent, it’s no surprise that you’d take the rules very seriously. The punishment for straying outside of them is too painful or dangerous to contemplate. For me to do so felt like I would disappear. It was only because I was following the rules that I had any sense of being grounded in reality.

When it comes to spiritual matters or other matters that originate in the subconscious mind, such as dreams, emotions, hopes, and other “soft” intangibles, the mind of the LoSEr naturally wants to apply rules or some other observable, measurable process. We’re so ingrained to do it “the right way” if we want any hope of success, we can be our own worst masters.

One of the devastating results of low self-esteem is a pervasive distrust in oneself. And so often, any journey we undertake in the soft, intangible realm is not measurable because it’s wholly subjective. I remember when I was “learning” ESP I was searching for teachers and authors who could explain to me what my ESP felt like and when it was signaling me. Many of the books I read strongly suggested listening to my inner voice and hearing what my guides were telling me. I wasted years in a frustrated haze of failure because I’m not auditory! 

We all have strong learning channels, and some people learn best using visual techniques, others kinesthetic or feeling styles, and some do best when they’re listening. I didn’t learn until much later that my two major learning channels were visual and kinesthetic. When I just listened to an instructor without taking notes or visualizing her ideas, I struggled to digest and comprehend. These are not learning disabilities, just natural channels of input that differ for each person. (If you’re interested in how you learn best, you can do an internet search for V-A-K charts, or type in Learning Channels. There are charts and “tests” that will help you understand whether you’re visual, auditory, or kinesthetic, or some combination of the three).

Yet there I was, trying to “hear” and failing miserably. I was following all the rules as these authors and teachers presented them, and yet the prize of satisfaction and accomplishment eluded me. In my low self-esteem I had one way of going forward: following the rules laid down by Important Adults. When that resulted in failure, I was left with nothing but the evidence of my unworthiness and an amplified low self-esteem.

The bottom line is that LoSE often demands that we take everything — especially seeking — seriously. LoSE demands discipline and chases us on our self-seeking journeys with a stick, its chant echoing in our minds: do it right, do it right, do it right. Breathing down our necks and taunting us with the LoSEr reality that failure and evidence of unworthiness is hot on our heels. LoSErs can be some of the most driven people you’ll meet.

When faced with a subjective journey, LoSErs expect that if they follow the same rules that objective tasks require, they’ll get where they’d like to go. But that misperception coupled with distrust in their own inner sense of themselves confounds even the most dedicated seeker. And it’s those who seek inner peace that need that trust the most!

When you begin to recover your inherent self-esteem (RISE), you accept the more subtle nature of the intangible information and recognize that it will likely not make the kind of sense that tangible data does to the conscious mind. You trust it anyway. RISErs realize that inner guidance and nudges from their intuition come from a place of love and knowing and sometimes — often — fly in the face of convention.

When I decided to leave my corporate job to open an office as a hypnotist, I was following my own counsel. Family and friends did their best to dissuade me because they were concerned I was making a huge mistake (I wasn’t). RISErs follow their hearts and dreams and have the confidence to withstand the pressures outside themselves to conform.

My client Jane wanted to have the feeling belief in Heaven that her dream had suggested, but at first was unable to step outside the rules about Heaven that she’d learned in her church. She had rigid expectations about what it meant to be in spirit, but was curious and open enough to eventually drop those expectations and trust in her dreams and feelings. 

My client Kerry felt a calling to pursue healing but tried to apply the same rules of medical school to her energy healing. She kept asking, “Yeah, but what do I do? What classes should I take?” In time Kerry came to see that the answers were within her and that no matter who “certified” her, energy healing would always be subjective and she’d need to learn to trust herself if she was truly going to thrive in that modality.

Erin wanted to believe and experience God in her life, but her low self-esteem convinced her that there was only one right way to do that, and it was hidden somewhere in the sacred texts of various spiritual traditions. She said to me more than once, “If I can only crack the code….” We discussed an idea in the Jesuit tradition (founded by St. Ignatius Loyola in the 1500s) that suggests talking to God as you’d talk to your best friend, one who loves you without judgment.

If you find that you too take the “rules” very seriously, consider what might be driving that. Especially notice if you’re defensive about your process or rules, or if you argue or feel uncomfortable when someone challenges the rules you follow. You might be trying to seek through the toxic fog of low self-esteem.

There is one aspect in the self-seeking process that I do suggest you take seriously, and that is RISE-ing. If you’ve suffered from low self-esteem you must — and this is hard because you’re already at a deficit in the area you need it most — have the confidence to believe that a part of you is perfect. Not only is that part perfect, but expressing it in your own unique, necessarily different way, is the only way to the peace, contentment, and fulfillment you seek. The rules don’t apply here; throw them all out.

You must pursue your inner light of eternal perfection with the kind of obsessive study you learned to apply in the rational world. The key to this process however, is that there is no wrong way to do it. Remember, this self-revelation is entirely subjective. Nobody knows the one way to accomplish it or how to determine that you have accomplished it. It’s all in your self-perception.

This, more than anything, deserves your serious efforts. If you don’t make RISE-ing a priority, you will always be last in line, hoping for the crumbs of contentment that fall off the table of the rules you obediently serve.

Begin by thinking about your dreams and goals, and your unique expression of them. Give them serious consideration. Consider them to be VIP guests in your home. Make a place of honor for them. Your yearnings are serious business, but the expression of them ought to delight you, challenge you, empower you, and fulfill you.

Take the belief in yourself seriously. It will bring you confidence, balance, and peace of mind.

There’s no giant book in the sky that defines what is the best way for you to be you. The joy of self-discovery is what life is all about! If you suffer from LoSE, the toxic fog of self-misperception tricks you into thinking that life is all about toeing someone else’s line, and the “you” inside can indeed be defined and should/could/ought to fit into a set a rules and expectations someone else put in place. Yet we’re miserable when the rules don’t fit us or when, after a lifetime of following them, the reward of fulfillment eludes us.

RISErs know that their first responsibility is to know and express their own unique ideas, and the most rewarding vocations are those that encourage us to do so. Individual fulfillment can never be defined or measured by outside forces. RISErs know that they must trust themselves and how the spirit guides them; only then will they experience — for themselves — true peace and joy. 

That’s not to say there aren’t good roadmaps out there to help us discover ourselves, but, like roadmaps, they are not the living experience of that journey. They are just guides, and your experience on the road is necessarily going to be unique to you. You can’t turn around and tell anyone else how it’s going to be either; you can only offer your experience and the helpful hints you used to navigate challenging terrain.

For example, I can tell you that I know what low self-esteem feels like because I lived with it for years. I can outline (and I have, in my book “Fix Your Screwed-Up Life. Recover Your Inherent Self-Esteem and Start Living the Life of Your Dreams”) suggested ways to RISE). But your LoSE and your RISE-ing will of course be unique to you.

Try to remember not to take the rules, the outside forces, and/or the Important Adults so seriously. Try not to take the spiritual seeking so seriously. You don’t want to be so heavenly that you’re no earthly good to yourself. Above all, remember that you don’t have to earn spiritual peace, freedom, and fulfillment — it’s your birthright. You inherited the right to creative expression of your SELF, and all the joy inherent in that sovereign Self. 

You don’t have to work hard to be happy or to follow God or explore healing, ESP, mediumship or other intangible modalities. You simply have to trust yourself and respond to the direction from your inner holy light. That might just mean putting down the rule books altogether.

The Power of Words

When you suffer from low self-esteem (LoSE), words can really sting. We learn as young LoSErs that criticism from our Important Adults or Authority Figures indicates faults in our being. LoSErs also learn that if they’re quick to criticize others they might just dodge judgment themselves so they model LoSEr behavior by maligning others who aren’t present or who are out of earshot. 

Everyone likes to dish the dirt; LoSErs do so especially because focusing on someone’s shortcomings or failures deflects attention from the shortcomings they feel in themselves. Some studies have even suggested that so-called “positive gossiping” can be inspiring; other studies have suggested that romantic couples can create a stronger bond when they gossip (positively or negatively) to each other about other couples. For example, a gossipy comment from one sweetheart to another can communicate how “we’re” different from “them,” and the way “we” do things means our love will last: “Those two have a joint bank account and he always spends without asking her, even though it’s also her money. That’s such a bad idea; can you believe it? They’re always fighting because of it. I’m glad we have separate accounts.”

But most studies agree that gossip is destructive. It’s not surprising to be sometimes more interested in what others are doing — and how they’re doing it wrong — than in our own lives. It’s when we criticize or gossip to others that we deepen our own LoSE. Someone with low self-esteem feels unworthy, invisible, or uninteresting, though he may not be consciously aware of it. When he gossips however, he is in a safe place, spinning some juicy narrative from which he is conspicuously absent. He’s not in the spotlight, but he’s controlling it.

I had a potentially disastrous encounter with gossip several years ago. A neighbor who was on a nominating committee for the superintendency in a public school asked me about a mutual colleague who was applying for the job. Her committee hadn’t yet assembled to vet this man, and she wanted — discreetly and confidentially — to gather some anecdotal opinions about his work style. Because I felt conflicted about front-loading his interview with “dirt,” I shared her request with my then-sweetheart. The next day I learned that Then-Sweetheart told the worst busy-body in town that the Applicant was interviewing for a job as Superintendent in Such-and-Such school district, and that Busy-Body wanted the number of my neighbor so she could give said Neighbor every last bit of crap she could think of on Applicant and could call Such-and-Such school district herself to further her rant against this man.

I was furious first with Then-Sweetheart, then with Busy-Body, and I gave both them a new vent through which to expel waste (if you know what I mean). If Busy-Body had contacted Such-and-Such school district, Neighbor would have been fired on the spot for her indiscretion. I had unintentionally started a wave of gossip that could have hurt two innocent people; as it was, it lead to the end of my relationship with Then-Boyfriend and earned me a reputation with Busy-Body as a b_tch.

I wasn’t even gossiping about the Applicant or the Neighbor! I just wanted to check in with a trusted other (Then-Boyfriend) about the inner conflict I felt; I wanted his opinion about whether my reticence was well-placed or no big deal.

Both Then-Boyfriend and Busy-Body are insecure in their own ways (we all are, to some extent), and it’s natural to project our insecurities on others. But when your LoSE convinces you that you’re a solid judge of someone else’s character and other people need to hear your opinion…. well, that’s destructive. Most LoSErs share gossip in order to be liked and accepted: to feel that they’re offering something of value to the world, or at least to the conversation. Gossip may reward the LoSEr with positive attention or a sense of self-importance in the moment: think of Busy-Body dialing up Such-and-Such school district and crowing to an administrator there all the “dirt” she knew on the Applicant. Boy, she’d get their attention then! Feeling as though she’d saved the day and saved Such-and-Such school district from making a terrible decision, and they’d have her to thank for it!

Unfortunately, gossip rarely benefits anyone. People come to recognize the wagging tongues of LoSErs and avoid them; they see that anything they might share with a gossip is very likely going to be spread to others, and will most likely have a negative spin.

There’s an Eleanor Roosevelt quote I see in memes from time to time: “Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.” Personally I don’t care much for the judgmental tone of this adage, but I get where the First Lady was going. While it’s not possible to get around discussing events and people, and the pressure to spout “great ideas” might just make you a total boor at the party — it IS possible to take the spirit of her statement and try to stop gossiping about people.

Years before I began to recover my inherent self-esteem (RISE) I indulged quite a bit in the guilty pleasure of gossip. It wasn’t a very attractive quality, and I see now that I gossiped to feel accepted among people I always perceived as more worthy. I felt that if I didn’t bring something interesting to the table, I would be rightfully ignored and dismissed. I distinctly remember joining a conversation at the gym among women who were talking about losing weight — what else? — and I mentioned that another of our acquaintances was considering bariatric surgery. I remember one of the women in this small group, Becky, giving me a mild look I couldn’t quite define, but it triggered what I knew to be an appropriate level of shame. A few weeks later I encountered Becky limping and I asked her what happened. She said very politely, “I’m sorry but I don’t want to tell you, you aren’t discreet.”

Even though I hadn’t really begun to RISE at that time, Becky’s simple comment brought a self-awareness that set my feet on the right path. Her RISEr comment and direct words helped me to see what self-esteem looks like.

Now I’m in the habit of not talking about others, and if I hear someone maligning a person I care about, I make sure to change the subject. I try to imagine how I would feel if the gossiper were talking about me, and without leaping to the subject’s defense or criticizing the gossiper, I simply introduce another topic for discussion as soon as possible. I imagine Becky saying, “You aren’t discreet.” It’s enough to make me listen hard to everything I’m saying and whether my words are adding harmony to the world at large or detracting from it.

As a hypnotist I’m often asked to give talks about the power of the mind and one of my favorite demonstrations illustrates how our words can literally damage or uplift a person. In this demonstration I ask a volunteer to come up to the dais with me and face the audience. I briefly introduce the topic of applied kinesiology (also known as muscle testing), which is a method of diagnosis based on the belief that various muscles are linked to particular organs and glands. Many traditional practitioners think its quackery, and there are strong arguments both for and against it, but for the purposes of my demonstration I explain that our bodies register and respond to the energy of other people, of nature, of thoughts, and of our environment, and AK or muscle testing reveals that response easily.

To show what I mean, I ask the volunteer to make a fist and hold her strongest arm out straight in front of her, as rigid and locked as she can. I then push down on it as hard as I can to show her and the audience her baseline strength, and then have her relax her arm at her side. Now we get to the fun part: I stand behind her and hold a card up above her head (where she can’t see it but the audience can) with the word “BAD” written on it, and I ask the audience not to say the word but to THINK it to the volunteer. Then I perform the muscle test again, and without fail, the volunteer’s arm collapses at the slightest pressure from me. Remember, she has no idea what the audience is thinking.

Then, because it’s always better to leave someone feeling empowered, I repeat the experience but this time have the audience think the word “GOOD” to the volunteer. And her arm when tested is stronger than even the baseline.

Draw your own conclusions about AK; for me, it’s a crystal clear illustration of how though affect other people. Can you imagine how much more power words spoken aloud have on someone? Can you imagine how you think and talk about yourself impacts you?

So how about you? Why not take a day or two to notice if you gravitate towards gossiping people or if you gossip yourself. If so, notice if there is one particular person around whom you like to dish the dirt. Look a little deeper at the subject: what is it about that person or his/her actions that is so gossip-worthy? Is it missing in yourself? Would you do something differently?

The next time you feel tempted to join in or initiate gossip, imagine someone whose opinion you treasure gently and sadly turning you away because “you aren’t discreet.” When you hear information that has the ring of gossip to it, see if you can graciously change the conversation or at least share something you admire about the subject of the gossip.

It will mean changing a habit, and that takes some mental discipline. I guarantee it is worth every effort. You’ll feel honest in your heart and you’ll discover a new kind of appreciation for others. Your discretion will impact your immediate circle and entire communities, even those online. Imagine not chiming in to the scare-mongering and gossiping on social media. I often think of those threads showing people poorly dressed in Walmart, or making silly mistakes, and I recognize that lapping these up and sharing them is a form of gossip too. Focusing on all the ways other people are less than you or more ridiculous than you might be balm for the LoSEr, but it also perpetuates the toxic fog of low self-esteem.

If you can break this habit, your own energy will change. You’ll feel more at peace and you’ll experience a more peaceful world. You’ll begin to notice and care more about what’s worth praising and celebrating. As you notice this in others, you’ll begin to see it more in yourself: you’ll naturally appreciate your own unique expression of the perfect spirit within.

I’ll leave you with this sublime advice from Ephesians 4:29:

“Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.”

The Spiritual Solution To Every Problem

Psychologists know that the way we see ourselves develops in early childhood through the way that we are seen by Important Adults. If a parent regularly expresses annoyance when a kid cries for attention or affection, that combined with other factors can create annoyance with our own need for affection as adults.

For example, my client Rick came to me for a psychic reading a few years after his marriage ended because he couldn’t find love again, and not for lack of trying. He was feeling demoralized and as though something was wrong with him as a man, even though he felt he was a good partner. He wanted to know if I could see a significant love for him in his future.

It was clear at the beginning of our appointment that Rick had a terrible headache, but when I suggested we reschedule he growled “No, I’ll be fine.” Rick made it clear has no patience with himself when he’s sick and revealed he has little patience with others who aren’t feeling their healthiest. He said his wife divorced him because of his inability to express sympathy and nurturing. He told me about the ongoing disagreement between them, and the final argument that lead to divorce:

“When we were first dating I broke my arm when I fell off a ladder doing some weekend chores. I didn’t want to go to the hospital but I finally did because the pain was so bad. I went to work on Monday morning and just kind of powered through. What else was I going to do? Sit home? Carolyn (then his girlfriend) tried to get me to take a day off but I wouldn’t. Afterwards she told me she was amazed that I powered through it and kept working; she thought I was just really ambitious and she was happy I wasn’t a slacker. She told me this after we got married.”

“What about when Carolyn was sick?” I asked Rick.

“That’s where our problems really blew up. I know she thinks I’m insensitive — maybe I am — but when someone just has a cold, come on, get over it. The world isn’t going to stop. Take some cold medicine or sleep for ten hours. Do what you need to do.”

“I can see why she might have thought that was insensitive,” I prompted.

“I guess so, but I don’t think I’m insensitive as a person. All of that fuss is just crazy. What is a person supposed to do? I can’t fix it, you just have to wait to get over it.”

The final straw came when his wife had to have dental surgery and Rick didn’t “coddle” her. “She wasn’t even awake! She was so drugged up on painkillers. I asked her what she needed a couple of times, and then I left her alone. We got into a huge argument a couple of days later and that’s when she filed for divorce. I know I have to resolve this somehow. Maybe my karma is broken and I won’t find a partner again.”

When I finished my reading for Rick I suggested he think about low self-esteem (LoSE) as an underlying issue in his self-perception. After all, he saw himself as a pretty good catch, “better than average” yet once things got intimate with his partner it was only a matter of weeks or months before the relationship ended. He brushed off my suggestion and I didn’t hear from him for about six months.

When he came back he wanted to talk about LoSE. “I think I need to get this ‘sympathy thing’ fixed,” he said. “I didn’t think I had low self-esteem, but I couldn’t quite shake the notion that you were onto something with that suggestion.”

With hypnosis and intuitive counseling Rick began to recover his inherent self-esteem (RISE). We did some regression work around events in his very early childhood where he could see his teenaged parents — both so overwhelmed with financial struggles and a new baby — and their inability to give him the attention and nurturing he desired. They did the best they could, but whenever young Rick was fussy, scared, or ill, his exhausted young parents expressed disappointment, frustration, and anger, often dismissing his whines and telling him, “You’re fine, I can’t do anything, get over it.” We all learn to treat ourselves how our early caregivers treat us, so it’s no surprise that Rick internalized impatience and frustration with his own and others’ “whining.”

I have another client named Ben with a similar early childhood story. Ben also internalized his parents’ impatience when he was needy, but he compensated by creating an overly-nurturing response. I met him after I’d been seeing his former girlfriend Cindy, with whom he was still friends. They came together for a life-in-perspective session with me, and both laughed about an example that highlighted Ben’s tendency to smother:

“We had just started dating and I had to move to New York City for a short-term acting job. Ben stayed in Ithaca where he worked and where we both lived. In one of our first phone calls while I was staying with my girlfriend Ben could hear I was getting stuffy. The next day I came back from rehearsal and outside the apartment door was a huge floral arrangement. It looked like a centerpiece at a fancy wedding reception. I mean, it was enormous! I could barely get it through the door.”

The following day more gifts arrived: teddy bears, chicken soup he’d had delivered from a restaurant he looked up in the neighborhood, more flowers. “And the phone calls!” Cindy laughed, “he’d leave me these messages about how worried he was about me. It was a cold! It was over in two days!”

Ben talked about his early childhood, his alcoholic father and emotionally checked-out mother, how little sympathy he received from either when he felt sick or anxious. Unlike Rick however, his brand of LoSE manifested in a desperate need to be present and available, to provide in advance for any small need a sick person might have. Not having been encouraged to talk about what he might need when he felt poorly, Ben assumed others were the same and as Cindy put it, was almost intrusive in his desire to meet her needs.

We see yourselves as we were taught to in childhood by Important Adults or Authority Figures. If other factors are in place, low self-esteem can turn that internalized perception into self-loathing or self-aggrandizement; expressions of underachievement or overachievement, a view of ourselves as unworthy or entitled.

British philosopher Derek Anthony Parfit (1943-2017), widely considered one of the most important and influential moral philosophers of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, wrote “The early Buddhist view is that much or most of the misery of human life resulted from the false view of self.” I’m not a philosopher (of any note ;o) but I think he’s referring to how LoSE creates personal misery.

We experience misery because we’re seeing what someone (usually a LoSEr) taught us to see in ourselves; whatever LoSE they struggled through they projected onto us. That’s how toxic fog spreads… it has no distinguishable edges, it seeps insidiously in and before we know it we’re contending with blurry, indistinct reasons that appear as evidence that we’re unworthy. “How did this idea get here?” we might ask if we were self-aware young children, without the utter reliance on Important Adults.

Adult LoSErs experience the “misery of human life” and the toxic fog of their low self-esteem makes that misery appear normal or deserved. RISErs also experience misery, but it’s less a condition and more a temporary state from which they apply their self-love, their self-awareness, and their rational minds to extricate themselves.

You came into this world a pure and perfect being, a life-affirming eternal energy force with the urge to thrive, express, create, connect, and grow. You came in as God’s thought of himself, individuated into the vehicle made by your biological parents’ DNA. The mind and body that grows from the DNA is a clean slate and ideally a servant of the spirit, following your natural and inherently perfect, deserving, and uniquely valuable urges simply to be. Our parents (or other Important Adults) who all have their own degree of toxic fog to deal with, often impress falsehoods on that clean slate of body and mind. They might teach us poor eating or sleeping habits, or that bodies should be fat, thin, athletic, or soft. We passively receive their teachings even through covert suggestions like “Everyone in our family struggles with weight,” or “Watch out for cholesterol because all the men on your mother’s side had heart disease.”

LoSEr Important Adults might teach us that our deepest desires — originating in our spirit — are the servant of the almighty Rational Mind, so we’d better just stop this silly pipe dream of being an artist and get a real job. We learn to see ourselves in comparison to measures of worldly success through school, career, and income.

The quickest way to escape the “misery of human life” is to shuffle off the false view of the self. If the view you have of yourself makes you feel ugly, small, unworthy, deficient, stupid, or never-able-to-keep-up-with-the-Joneses, you’re seeing yourself through the toxic fog of LoSE.

Why not make a special effort to find that lovely spirit within you. You’ll be able to identify it in those moments of connection you feel with a beloved child, friend, or pet. You’ll find it in those joyful, spontaneous moments when time seems to disappear. That’s your spirit reminding you that you deserve joy and abundance. You’re God’s thought of Himself, so of course you feel like creating, or singing, or walking in nature, or playing. Begin to bring this view of yourself more into your daily life whenever possible.

Focus for a little bit every so often on how you would like to feel. Stay with that feeling for several minutes or as long as you can. You’re re-establishing the connections between your mind and your spirit, and before long your mind will desire to serve that happy spirit. Your powerful mind will begin to show you ways to see yourself that feel TRUE, and will begin to suggest strategies to you that will make those feelings more consistent. You can trust your spirit to give you the authentic view of yourself.

If, like Rick or Ben you seem to be missing the mark with others and you’re consistently getting the same message that you’re not nurturing enough or too nurturing, look at how you see yourself around that issue.

For example, if you hear that you’re not nurturing enough, think about how you feel about being cared for when you’re sick. Think about how you see yourself around sickness, and think about what your early Important Adult caregivers felt about it. Is it an inconvenience? Is it cause for great alarm? Were you made fun of for being weak? Did a parent work through illness because to take a day off would have a negative impact on finances? You were taught to see yourself a certain way around the issue of nurturing. There’s nothing wrong with you; you can’t help what you were taught. But consider whether it conflicts with what your spirit feels about nurturing.

After thinking about these questions, begin feeling what your spirit wants to express around nurturing. When you’re ill do you feel scared or alone? When others are sick do you feel helpless or frightened? There are no wrong answers to this self-exploration, just discovery.

Come to know how you see yourself, and you’ll begin to truly see yourself. You’ll distinguish between the mind’s directives (what we’re taught) and the spirit’s urgings (what we long for). Whenever possible, defer to the spirit. It knows how to fix everything. That’s why you hear statements like “there’s a spiritual solution to every problem.”

I encourage you to seek the perfect spirit within in whatever way makes your heart glad. We have enough misperception out there in the world; it’s practically self-perpetuating. When you see yourself as you truly are — an individual spark of a flawless Creator — everything in life improves.