Your self Image will limit your truth

It sounds a bit weird doesn’t it? But it is true.

If you think about it, you have created your Self image by doing a number of things:

Firstly you have tried to make yourself acceptable within your society and therefore you paint an image of yourself that fits what you believe is how society wants to see you. This is not necessarily the real you. You are acting a part. Better not forget your lines!

Secondly your upbringing and what you have been taught whilst growing up have guided you to create what you think is an acceptable self image.

Thirdly, in the work place you have tried to project a self image that will support your position.

The worst thing about this is, the job you are in may not allow you to express who you really are and you will never be truly happy. You are just working to make enough money to live. The fear of leaving the certainty of your employment locks you in and it is only much later in life that you realise that you have been in the wrong job.

You have created a Self image that is motivated to satisfy where you are.

Throughout your life you have been putting on act, and what you are acting is not your truth. You are far, far more.

My next door neighbour put a notice out on our Whatsapp group saying she had a lot of aubergines and green peppers to give away. She came for tea later that day and we asked her where they came from. The reply was so interesting. During the Covid lock down her son started growing vegetables on their small holding and sold everything to the poorer community at a price that was 50% less than in the shops. This was his way of helping.

Her son had just completed a degree in business management, but had no idea what he really wanted to do. Then after three months of growing vegetables he realised this is what he wanted to do with his life, so he did not have to create a self image, he could be his true self.

You come into this world with everything you will ever need. Think of a baby, it has no negative or limiting thoughts. Its mind is a clean slate. It knows no limitations. The child does not think it cannot walk. It just copies you, gets up and stumbles again and again until it can walk. Then we start putting in limitations: Don’t do that, you can’t go there and so it goes on until we have trained the child to be almost exactly like us. Thus we have become their limitation. I am not saying this is right or wrong, but this is the process of conditioning that all of us go through. Essentially our children are living our dream and not their own. This is what Don Miguel Ruiz tells us in his book “The Four Agreements”. This therefore becomes their limitation and limits their truth.

This situation often causes friction between parents and children, because we do not allow our children to be who they truly are. We have no idea we are doing this. This is how we were taught and how our predecessors were taught and we believe what we are doing is the best for our children.

So how do we develop our own true self image in the face of society and all its expectations? How do we overcome our ego so we can allow our true self to surface?

We have to let go the limiting self image we have been acting out and realise that we are perfect as we are. This is going to need a lot of self introspection.

We need to realise we came into this life with everything we need and with no limitations. Our upbringing and our conditioning have created our limitations. We are not our true selves, we are simply acting in the “play” of our life.

As hard as it may be, we have to let go our past conditioning and move back into the field of all possibilities that we were in as a baby, where we knew no limitations. We can then be our true selves, and just be who we really are. Because we actually have no limitations, the world will open up to us and we can Do, Be and Have whatever we desire.

Yours in thought and Love

Roger