This blog is dedicated to finding, sharing and discussing a variety of topics around the struggles our clients and audience go through. Each episode we discuss a key concept that many humans struggle with. To give you a variety of perspectives for you to see the concept through so you can find one that makes it feel easier to deal with.
And if you prefer to listen, this episode is available as a Podcast or a Video.
Let Me Tell You A Story…
Instead of my usual blog posts with lots of information for you to read and use in your life, today I want to tell you a story. And this story is also being written / read / told live every Tuesday and Thursday at 8:30pm GMT on (hopefully!) YouTube, Facebook and LinkedIn between 12th November and 24th December. Click these links to subscribe and join us for the next instalment!
Stories have been used for centuries to share wisdom and ideas within our species. And this idea for this particular story came to me a few months ago as a way of sharing some new ideas with people that can improve their life.
I find stories are the best way to get a message across. It is why we like to read books, watch TV series and films. Because stories are a great way to share a message by inviting the reader / watcher / listener to be a part of the story. To become the character in their imagination.
And that’s what this story will do. It will invite you to become the main character, Morgan, and become the hero / heroine of the story!
There will 13 chapters and this will constitute the first draft of this story before I send it to publishers and become a published author. Which has always been a dream of mine! So thankyou to you for joining me and holding me to account to get this planned, written, shared, edited and finally published! Without you, I would probably let myself off the hook (like I have effectively been doing all year since the idea came to me!) and this would never get done.
So I hope you enjoy these 13 blog posts, and if you want to send me any ideas or ask any questions to guide the story or to make it make more sense to you, then please don’t hesitate to get in touch. I look forward to hearing your thoughts, but for now let us carry on…
Read Chapter One HERE.
Chapter Two is HERE.
See Chapter Three HERE.
Chapter Four is HERE.
Find Chapter Five HERE.
Chapter Six is HERE.
CHAPTER SEVEN – Is Life A Reflection?
It is Thursday today.
I have woken up with an immense feeling of calm excitement and it feels amazing. All this stuff I am learning at the moment from the books, my friend’s webinar, conversations at the coffee shop and yesterday’s seminar is so eye opening. It almost feels like all the years I have spent being told I’m wrong and feeling that I’m unworthy were actually all lies. Like there is this massive secret, hidden in plain sight for anyone to find, but we are actively guided away from it by everyone who doesn’t know.
Those who do know about it do the opposite. They actively try to guide you to find it! The speaker yesterday. My old friend. The gentleman at the coffee shop… They all know this secret and it feels like they are guiding me towards it rather than pushing me down the route we are seemingly supposed to live. The quiet road, where we just do our work and no more. Where we ask for time off and build someone else’s life by working hard for their company.
Maybe life didn’t really need to be as hard as it has been! All those years in school being made to feel stupid because I wasn’t the top of the class. I wasn’t the bottom either, I was simply in the middle. Middle of the road. Average Joe. Not really disliked, but not really liked either. It was the same at home. My parents did their best of course, but constant criticism and comments comparing me to siblings or cousins or the neighbour’s kids does tend to make you feel unworthy… I think it was done to try and give me a kick up the bum! But it had the opposite effect. I didn’t want to be like the other kids, so I just kept moving further away from who they were.
But who I was, who I am, never seemed to be good enough.
And that is the biggest message I am taking away from all this information: I am good enough. Me. Morgan, is exactly who I should be. There is no one else who can be me, and I can’t be anyone else. And if people don’t like who I choose to be then that is their problem I guess!
But who do I want to be?
I’m definitely not the same person who laid here 6 weeks ago dreading going to work!
Nor am I the person I want to be yet. I can feel that there is still something not quite there, maybe because the rent is due next week, and my pay hasn’t arrived in my bank yet from my old job. The person I want to be, that I guess anyone wants to be, would not have to worry about things like that! Nor would they have to think really carefully about where to buy a new coat and boots where the quality is still going to last a while without costing too much…
That’s a later job! It’s only just past 7 in the morning.
The question comes up again. Who do I want to be?
I get up out of bed to get a notepad and pen and then jump back into bed and write the question at the top.
I guess the best place to start is to write what I want? So, I do that. My old list easily streaming from my mind to the paper. The better job. Bigger house. Travelling. The rabbit. Monthly manicures / pedicures. Weekly massages. To be fitter and healthier…
I look at my list and my mind fills with the images of all these things, and I notice that I am almost looking down on myself while I am living that life and having those things. So I start to describe that Morgan that I can see in my imagination.
The way my hair looks, the clothes I’m wearing. People around me. My personality traits, which I feel I have already, just not to that extent! But actually… the more I look at that Morgan, the more I see that everything they are, is who I am now. But me now is just muting myself. Playing down these traits. Not speaking out or doing the things I know should be doing. Keeping me in a box while I try to act in a way that conforms to other people’s expectations of me…
Where did that thought come from?
It makes a lot of sense. We see a few people who are actually doing what their heart desires. The really happy and successful ones who have a dream, know what they want and are not afraid to go and get it. Then the majority of us play it small. Play safe. As long as we have shelter, food, people who love us, then that is enough. Then, I guess to me at least, there are the rest of us. Wanting to dream and escape where we are now to where we want to go, but too afraid to let go of what we have already. Stuck in the middle in some way between those who are getting their dreams and those who stay contented with what they have.
I think I am in the middle… I want so much more than I have now and these books and talks all make me believe that I am capable of getting it. But still… I am not willing to take the risk.
What if I lose it all? Lose all that I have now on the way to where I want to go. It feels almost like jumping off a perfectly good boat into the water with no life jacket and only a rough idea of which direction to swim in.
That’s a good analogy actually! The boat represents my life now. Floating along, being taken by the tide and wind wherever it may go, but on board is everything I need. It has food, shelter, safety, comfort, entertainment, other people to interact with. But that’s it. There isn’t anything MORE. And I think it is the more I am wanting.
But then that thought makes me feel very selfish. Maybe an upbringing of being told to be grateful for what I have as others have even less than me is the cause of that feeling! Because, yes, my life isn’t amazing, it could be so much more. But there are others living in cardboard boxes. Or in a warzone. People who eat the same amount in a week that I am able to provide for myself every day.
I should be grateful.
But then I look at my list and various voices and pieces of information tell me that I deserve so much more. I was created to live to the utmost of my abilities, and I am not doing that. I know I have so much more to give, and through that giving I will then get all the things that I want in my life.
Surely that’s not selfish, is it? To be able to give more to others I must first have something to give. I guess that’s why I get so much fulfilment from working at the coffee shop. It is an opportunity to help others. The coffee shop owner to have a better work-life balance while still having a good income. The customers by providing their favourite drink and food that they have chosen to spend their money on, regardless of how they earnt it.
So what more can I do? Who am I and where do I want to be?
I look up from my notepad and the half dozen papers covered in my mind’s wanderings. No. Wanting more is not selfish because my having more means others can have more as well.
I stretch and decide to have some breakfast. I brought home some snacks that were left over last night, so I put them on a plate while the water for my morning drink boils.
Who do I want to be…
The question is still mulling around in my head as I make my drink and take it to the table with my breakfast and notepad. I decide to draw a stickperson on the next clean page and start writing words as they pop into my head.
Descriptive words about my appearance, my personality, my morals and beliefs. Just individual words and some short sentences. I just let my imagination take over and write whatever comes to mind and when I’m finished it is like looking in some sort of distorted mirror. Everything on the page in front of me reflects the person that I am now, just less suppressed.
And I guess that would be why the images in my head of future me are so bold and amazing, and my current reality is, well, suppressed!
As the speaker said yesterday, we are what we think. And I know for a fact that while one minute I am thinking about all the things I want and the person I want to be, the next I am thinking that that will never be me. I can’t do those things or be that person. And yet, this page of doodles and words says that I am already capable as the building blocks for all of those things are inside me already.
Just need to build on them.
I guess that is when I then come unstuck. I know what I should be doing but am almost scared to do it because… What if I fail? What if I screw it all up like everyone says I also do and end up homeless, jobless, and on the street in a cardboard box? My cardboard box house I made for my 7th Christmas was the most amazing thing in the world to my 7-year-old self! But it was inside a nice warm home, not outside under a bridge.
My right ear and my forehead are both burning and aching at the same time. It is the weirdest sensation, and I have butterflies in my stomach that are definitely not caused by my breakfast!
I think I need to get outside for a walk. So I clear up my breakfast things, have a quick shower so my mind does not have time to start running away with itself again, get dressed and head out to go and upgrade my coat and buy some wellies.
The walk feels good. Almost freeing. The air is fresh but not too cold and there are not many people around. I know of a discount store not far from home that should stock what I need and not be too expensive, so I head there.
A quick look around, trying on various coats and boots before making my decision. A coat with a removable liner was just as cheap as buying a thicker coat, and some more boot like wellies that are a whole lot more comfortable and will also be suitable for work. Saves me needing to carry spare shoes!
I pay, then walk home in my new boots to give them a trial run.
Once home I decide to sit and read the rest of Think And Grow Rich before starting on Psycho-Cybernetics. Again, I am itching to read the book the speaker gave me, but the library books need to be returned!
Mid-afternoon I head over to the coffee shop for my afternoon shift. The owner greets me warmly and I ask where the other barista is who usually works Thursday. Apparently disappeared off the face of the Earth! No word from them in just over a week now. I hope they are OK… If I knew a little more about them then I would pop over after work, but I don’t know much more than their name and a little about their family and their dreams of being a star on stage.
Maybe they got that big break they were always talking about! The owner smiles and says they hope so. They just wish they would get in touch, so they knew whether they needed to hire someone new or keep the job open! I suggest maybe just until the weekend and then it would be two weeks which to me seemed a fair amount of time with no contact. This is a business after all and Thursdays the owner usually works in one of the other shops.
Conversation turns towards how my week has been and as it is quiet in the shop before the after-school mini rush, I tell them all about the seminar last night. They listen intently as I recount the bits I heard and my thoughts about them, they seem as interested as I am! I am still getting used to speaking with someone who actually cares about what I am saying enough to listen and discuss it!
And discuss it we do.
I also mention my musings that morning and how life feels so different now compared to even two weeks ago even though nothing has physically changed since I lost my main job. It definitely proves that what we think impacts on how we see and interact with the world.
The owner agrees and our conversation is cut short by the arrival of the first afternoon customers. They stay for the initial rush and then head off to the other shop shortly after. It is my pleasure to man the shop for the rest of the day and lock up at the end.
The shift goes well, a few regulars, lots of conversations and everyone is happy with their drinks. I even seem to get more tips as well for some reason, and a few quiet moments where I can sit and read some more of Psycho-Cybernetics. Once all the jobs are done ready for the morning, I lock up and go straight home as dusk has already been and gone and it will be dark soon.
I have a shower and tuck into the sandwich and piece of cake that would not be good for sale tomorrow, and continue reading through Psycho-Cybernetics. I don’t notice the letter still hanging from my letterbox. This book is slightly more scientific than the others I’ve read so far, but seems to be following the same sort of ideas.
The bit I was reading in the shop was one of the introduction pieces, but now I turn to chapter one, and it’s called ‘The Self-Image: Your Key To A Better Life’. Self-image.
That was what I was writing about this morning, so let’s take a look.
“During the past decade a revolution has been quietly going on in the fields of psychology, psychiatry, and medicine.”
This book was written in the 1960’s, so the past decade will have been 1950.
“New theories and concepts concerning the “Self” have grown out of the work and findings of clinical psychologists, practicing psychiatrists, and cosmetic or so-called plastic surgeons. New methods growing out of these findings have resulted in rather dramatic changes in personality, health, and apparently even in basic abilities and talents. Chronic failures have become successful. ‘F’ students have changed into ‘straight A’ pupils within a matter of days and with no extra tutoring. Shy, retiring, inhibited personalities have become happy and outgoing.
Writing in the January 1959 issue of Cosmopolitan magazine, T. F. James summarises the results obtained by various psychologists and MDs as follows:
Understanding the psychology of the self can mean the difference between success and failure, love and hate, bitterness and happiness. The discovery of real self can rescue a crumbling marriage, recreate a faltering career, and transform victims of ‘personality failure.’ On another plane, discovering your real self means the difference between freedom and the compulsions of conformity.”
So it’s a choice then!
You get to choose to keep playing it small, and being that person everyone seems to think you are. Or you get to choose to discover your real self…
“Your Key To A Better Life.” Hmmm… Let’s see what it says.
“The most important psychological discovery of this century is the discovery of the ‘self-image’. Whether we realise it or not, each of us carries about with us a mental blueprint or picture of ourselves. It may be vague and ill-defined to our conscious gaze. In fact, it may not be consciously recognisable at all. But it is there, complete down to the last detail. This self-image is our own conception of the ‘sort of person I am’. It has been built up from our own beliefs about ourselves. But most of these beliefs about ourselves have unconsciously been formed from our past experiences, our successes and failures, our humiliations, our triumphs, and the way other people have reacted to us, especially in early childhood. From all these we mentally construct a ‘self’ (or a picture of a self). Once an idea or a belief about ourselves goes into this picture, it becomes ‘true’, as far as we personally are concerned. We do not question its validity, but proceed to act upon it just as if it were true.
This self-image becomes a golden key to living a better life because of two important discoveries:
1. All your actions, feelings, behaviours – even your abilities – are always consistent with this self-image. In short, you will ‘act like’ the sort of person you conceive yourself to be. Not only this, but you literally cannot act otherwise, in spite of all your conscious efforts or willpower. The man who conceives himself to be a ‘failure-type person’ will find some way to fail, in spite of all his good intentions, or his willpower, even if opportunity is literally dumped in his lap. The person who conceives himself to be a victim of injustice, one ‘who was meant to suffer’, will invariably find circumstances to verify his opinions.”
That makes me think of my grandad. He was so adamant at all times that everyone was out to get him, and it seemed that everyone always was! Even when he met the nicest person on the planet, somehow, at some point, some thing would happen and that person would turn against him. It was almost… Well, it was actually every single time!
Huh… It goes on to say:
“The self-image is a premise, a base, or a foundation upon which your entire personality, your behaviour, and even your circumstances are built. Because of this our expectations seem to verify, and thereby strengthen, our self-images and a vicious or a beneficent cycle, as the case may be, is set up.
For example, a schoolboy who sees himself as an ‘F’-type student, or one who is ‘dumb in mathematics’, will invariably find that his report card bears him out. He then has ‘proof’. A young girl who has an image of herself as the sort of person nobody likes will indeed find that she is avoided at the school dance. She literally invites rejection. Her woebegone expression, her hangdog manner, her over-anxiousness to please, or perhaps her unconscious hostility toward those she anticipates will affront her – all act to drive away those whom she would attract. In the same manner, a salesman or a businessman will also find that his actual experiences tend to ‘prove’ his self-image is correct.
Because of this objective ‘proof’ it very seldom occurs to a person that his trouble lies in his self-image or his own evaluation of himself. Tell the schoolboy that he only ‘thinks’ he cannot master algebra, and he will doubt your sanity. He has tried and tried, and still his report card tells the story. Tell the salesman that is it only an ‘idea’ that he cannot earn more than a certain figure, and he can prove you wrong by his order book. He knows only too well how hard he has tried and failed. Yet, as we shall see later, almost miraculous changes have occurred both in student’s grades and in the earning capacity of salesmen when they were prevailed upon to change their self-images.”
Interesting…
So, you find the evidence to prove what you think about yourself and how your self-image is. That is an interesting concept. No what is the second important discovery?
“2. The self-image can be changed. Numerous case histories have shown that one is never to young or too old to change his self-image and thereby start to live a new life.”
I guess that’s what I have been doing. Without realising it or knowing it.
“One of the reasons it has seemed so difficult for a person to change his habits, his personality, or his way of life has been that heretofore nearly all efforts at change have been directed to the circumference of the self, so to speak, rather than to the centre. Numerous patients have said to me something like the following: ‘If you are talking about ‘positive thinking’, I’ve tried that before, and it just doesn’t work for me.’ However, a little questioning invariably brings out that these individuals have employed ‘positive thinking’, or attempted to employ it, either on particular external circumstances, or on some particular habit or character defect. (‘I will get that job,’ ‘I will be more calm and relaxed in the future’, ‘This business venture will turn out right for me’, etc.) But they have never thought to change their thinking about the ‘self’ that was to accomplish these things.
Hmmm…
So nothing in life is going to change unless you believe it already has, is what I get from that. I think I might have to sleep on that… Maybe… Have some more thinking time. Maybe mull it over a bit more as I’m cleaning tomorrow morning. But it is definitely interesting, isn’t it? You get to change and decide who you want to be by shifting your self-image in your mind.
Another very interesting concept but I think that’s for later as its time to get my head down now. I have work tomorrow, so lets see what tomorrow will bring.
What Do You Think?
So what do you think? Comment below with your feedback and where you would like to see Morgan’s story go or where you think it will go! I only have a rough outline plan so far so your input could guide it in another direction…
If this story resonates with you and you want to discuss this further, then get in touch today. Either here or through any of my social medias or schedule a call to discuss it with me directly.
I look forward to speaking with you soon.
To your success,
Jaiye
PS.
Don’t forget to come and join me live if it hasn’t gone past the 24th December 2024 yet! I go live with a new chapter every Tuesday and Thursday on my Linked In, Facebook and YouTube channels and you are more than welcome to join me. Register now!
