“Understand: you are one of a kind. Your character traits are a kind of chemical mix that will never be repeated in history. There are ideas unique to you, a specific rhythm and perspective that are your strengths, not your weaknesses. You must not be afraid of your uniqueness and you must care less and less what people think of you.”
Robert Greene
Photo by Sebastian Voortman on Pexels.com
As Seth Gillihan points out many of us struggle with a general negative feeling about ourselves. Maybe you think awful things about yourself—that you’re stupid, disgusting, unlovable, or worthless. Perhaps you’re constantly on your own case about not doing enough, or “messing up” everything you try. Or maybe it’s hard to find words for your sense of inadequacy, and while you don’t believe you’re bad, you have a chronic sense of not being happy with yourself.
It’s hard to feel at ease when you have a pervasive feeling that, in some fundamental way, you’re not OK. Self-neglect can be more subtle but similarly damaging. We might be very considerate toward everyone in our lives except for the person who inhabits our own skin.
Try these four strategies to show yourself some care:
It’s very difficult to force ourselves to feel a certain way about who we are. Changing unhelpful thoughts is useful to some extent, especially if those thoughts are overly harsh and simply not true. Try replacing any negative self-talk with a positive framework. As an example, try treating yourself like an ANGEL:
A – Awesome
N – Nice
G – Goodhearted
E – Exceptional
L – Loveable idiot (reserved for very special occasions only 😜).
While ‘loveable idiot’ term was coined by Alain de Botton in the context of interpersonal relationships, I think it applies very well to our relationship with ourselves and helps us to learn to treat ourselves with laughter rather than criticism…
Not all angels reside in heaven.
Some walk the earth.
Just like you…
THE END
Adapted from Psychology Today
Photo by Matheus Bertelli on Pexels.com
“Remember, if you ever need a helping hand, it’s at the end of your arm…”
Audrey Hepburn
THE END
“All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players.…”
(From Shakespeare’s ‘As You Like It’, 1600)
from http://sometimesalicefx.deviantart.com
On some level we are all facing fear – afraid of being seen for who we truly are. Afraid of seeing ourselves for who we really are…
As Christine Hassler notes in her article The Power of Vulnerability “most of us can relate to times when we expressed an emotion and it was not received well, so we develop suppression techniques. Although it may seem like we are protecting ourselves, suppressing our expression erects walls around our hearts and reinforces beliefs about it not being safe to share our genuine feelings with another. As a result, we form relationships that are based more on fear than love…
From YouTube
But we cannot truly experience the delicious emotions that a relationship offers if we are not authentic. I invite you to read the word “intimacy” as “into-me-see”. We create intimacy with others when we allow ourselves to be seen. Vulnerability is our way to break patterns of avoiding being truly seen for fear of how we will be received. If you are protecting and guarding yourself, you are unavailable for intimacy…
From Raw for Beauty
Don’t let fear stop you when it comes to being raw and real with others. To fully feel the love and connection we all yearn for, vulnerability is required. Think of someone you feel very close to. There have been times when you have shared a feeling with that person that felt risky to expose, yet when it was received with love, rather than judgment, your relationship got stronger. Vulnerability connects us. It is a great gift we give to another person when we let them see behind any masks or walls of emotional protection.”
From http://abstract.desktopnexus.com/wallpaper/650168/
“Just be yourself. Let people see the real, imperfect, flawed, quirky, weird, beautiful, magical person that YOU are.”
Mandy Hale
The Arena
Don’t judge yourself and don’t care what others think…
Your life is your arena: eliminate all fears and self-doubt and enter it with confidence and self-worth.
Just be yourself and follow your passions and dreams…
THE END
I’m a very special person,
There’s no-one else like me.
If you searched the whole world over,
My twin you’d never see.
My looks, my thoughts, my feelings,
Are mine and mine alone.
They often make me happy,
But sometimes make me moan.
I’m a very special person,
And I’m sure that you’d agree
If everyone was perfect
How boring life would be.
(Author unknown)
THE END
Photo: ‘What’s behind Malevich’s square’ by Sergey K.
“Criticism is something we can avoid easily by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing”
Aristotle (384 BCE-322 BCE)
“Let’s face it: we all have to deal with criticism from time to time. And no matter how thick-skinned we are, critical words usually sting…
While sometimes it feels as if it would be great to avoid criticism all together, it’s a part of life, and it’s a part that can make us stronger and better…
How to handle criticism positively?
1. Don’t take it personally: try to take a step back from the words and process them from an objective place.
2. Believe in yourself: When you know (and stay true to) who you are, you can be more open to others words because you know they will either ring true to you or they will be so inaccurate that you won’t even need to think twice about them.
3. Realize you can’t please everyone: Every single one of us has a unique perspective of reality influenced by our thoughts and experiences and sometimes our perspective creates different ideas of how things should be.
4. Use negative feedback to inspire you: Listen to the criticism someone is offering you and ask yourself if it might possibly be a good advice. If you decide it is, act on it. Make changes for the better.
5. Learn from the critique. There are two ways you can learn from criticism: (1) you can see the truth it in (if there is any) and strive to make some edits to your behavior, or (2) you can realize that it’s not valid and you can strengthen your own beliefs by sticking to what feels true to you.”
(From http://www.positivelypresent.com )
AND
Don’t be too quick to criticise yourself…
If nothing bad is ever said, nothing good will ever get done.
😉
THE END
From http://www.deviantart.com
Old and tired he lives alone
The world forgot the love he shown.
A tear rolls down his saddened cheek
Once strong willed now getting weak.
Another chapter in his book
What did he write? Let’s take a look!
He wrote of goodness in mankind
And peace on earth within his time.
When love was pure and innocent
In God we trust that’s what it meant.
Our flag flown high we all were proud
Sat back relaxed and watched the clouds.
I closed the book to his surprise
Not looking up he did ask why.
There’s too much good in this book
You will not get a second look.
No one will spend the time to read
They want violence, crime, sex and greed.
The thousand goods that you have done
They’re all forgotten one by one.
You have to have an evil deed
And only one is all you need!
Rename the title as to read
You’ll be remembered guaranteed.
Once a clown his smile now gone
With tears of life and face withdrawn.
I hear him speak, a quiet voice
“Don’t mankind know~~ they have a choice.”
From Our Poetry Corner
From http://dzpal.deviantart.com
“You ever have that funny friend, the class-clown type, who one day just stopped being funny around you? Did it make you think they were depressed? Because it’s far more likely that, in reality, that was the first time they were comfortable enough around you to drop the act. The ones who kill themselves, well, they’re funny right up to the end….
Here’s how it works…
1. At an early age, you start hating yourself. Often it’s because you were abused, or just grew up in a broken home, or were rejected socially, or maybe you were just weird or fat or … whatever. You’re not like the other kids, the other kids don’t seem to like you, and you can usually detect that by age 5 or so.
2. At some point, usually at a very young age, you did something that got a laugh from the room. You made a joke or fell down, and you realized for the first time that you could get a positive reaction that way. Not genuine love or affection, mind you, just a reaction – one that is a step up from hatred and a thousand steps up from invisibility. One you could control.
3. You soon learned that being funny builds a perfect, impenetrable wall around you – a buffer that keeps anyone from getting too close. The more you hate yourself, the stronger you need to make the barrier and the further you have to push people away. In other words, the better you have to be at comedy.
4. In your formative years, you wind up creating a second, false you – a clown that can go out and represent you, outside the barrier. The clown is always joking, always “on,” always drawing all of the attention in order to prevent anyone from poking away at the barrier and finding the real person behind it. The clown is the life of the party, the classroom joker, the guy up on stage – as different from the “real” you as possible. Again, the goal is to create distance. You do it because if people hate the clown, who cares? That’s not the real you. So you’re protected. But the side effect is that if people love the clown … well, you know the truth. You know how different it’d be if they met the real you…
But there’s more. The jokes that keep the crowd happy – and keep the people around you at bay – come from inside you, and are dug painfully out of your own guts. You expose and examine your own insecurities, flaws, fears – all of that stuff makes the best fuel…
Did you ever have that funny friend, the class-clown type, who one day just stopped being funny around you?… Be there when they need you, and keep being there even when they stop being funny. Every time they make a joke around you, they’re doing it because they instinctively and reflexively think that’s what they need to do to make you like them. They’re afraid that the moment the laughter stops, all that’s left is that gross, awkward kid everyone hated on the playground, the one they’ve been hiding behind bricks all their adult life. If they come to you wanting to have a conversation about their problems, don’t drop hints that you wish they’d “lighten up.” It’s really easy to hear that as “Man, what happened to the clown? I liked him better…”
From Cracked
Rest in peace, Robin. The countless moments of joy and laughter you gave to others will never be forgotten…
From http://simono1968.wordpress.com
THE END
From 
From 
From 
Otrazhenie 
