Our self concept jen: Several of the comments on the post your pics thread got me thinking about how devastating divorce is on our self-concept. The very idea of divorcing and what it means to us within the context of our religion, our family traditions, everything...I know for myself that much of my identity about who I am after 12 years w/ my stbx was tied up into roles I played in our marriage...I was somebody's partner, friend, lover, etc.
Many of us heard very diminishing messages from our ex's. Many of us spent many hours in introspection wondering what we did wrong and what we could have done differently. Many of us wondered, "What was wrong with me". All of this does a number on our self-esteem.
OK...I am getting to my point (I freely admit to being longwinded ;) )
Just wanted to share something from a PHENOMENAL training I went to yesterday for work. At the end we were talking about changing our self-concepts. Our self-concept is learned, largely from what we learn, believe and interpret from what others say to us and how they treat us. Our self-concept tends to be self-perpetuating and guides our interpretations of new experiences and information, etc. We can choose to reject or correct these messages that we have learned or chosen to accept about ourselves that is creating negative self-esteem
I just loved this hot air balloon analogy about our "self" and how we can change our self-concept.
Imagine a hot air balloon. The balloon itself represents our self-concept. The flame that fuels the balloon symbolizes our self-awareness and the basket represents our self-esteem.
As self-awareness increases, or the flame gets higher, the self-concept ballooon becomes larger and more congruent with our self-description and description of ourselves by others
As the self-concept becomes more congruent, the self-esteem basket gets lighter by tossing out negative statements and old baggage
With increased self-awareness, and a lighter self-esteem basket, and a more defined self-concept, we are able to go HIGHER and HIGHER!
Let's challenge ourselves and each other to correct the negative messages and ideas that we may have taken on about ourselves.
Really, in the midst of this chaos and the brutality of the divorce experience, we also have the opportunity to become more self-aware through it. And, with self-awareness, we are empowered to choose whatever tomorrow we have the creativity to imagine.
HERE'S TO DREAMING BIG AND BELIEVING THAT IT CAN HAPPEN!
Re:Our self concept jen: Medusa,
What could we do that is concrete to work on this...okay...I'm thinking...
It's so difficult to unlearn something. It means that either we have to reject the messages that aren't true or get messages (from ourselves and others) to replace what we have learned.
I think we could:
(writing these out I notice that we do a lot of these things on Ojar already...)
provide each other with positive messages
remind each other to challenge some of our own negative beliefs that we have about ourselves when we see them being expressed.
encourage one another to do and say things for ourselves that invalidate those messages and then affirm the new messages
Individually, we can think, in specific, about where some of these negative beliefs came from...which people, which experiences, which statements and whether these
I will try to think of more about concrete things we can do throughout the day...
mtmo
**edited to add** What about turning this into a positive affirmation thread?
Re:Our self concept paul76: mtmo~
So what you are saying is that if I go around thinking that I am dead sexy, I will actually project myself to be that? I have always had a problem with self image stemming from being a chunky kid, and its only gotten worse with age. Even when I was thin, I still thought I was fat.
I just dont understand where to start with this. It does however seem worth a shot.
potzy
Re:Our self concept jen: potzy,
I lost a whole bunch of weight right after my stbxh left...and what do you think I see when I look in the mirror? I try on old clothes and can SEE that they are too big, but I don't see the difference when I look in the mirror. Crazy the power of the mind. I work on it, though.
In any case, I think it's not so much about projecting ourselves to others as being a certain way...but to ourselves and what we BELIEVE in our heart of hearts to be true. (trust me, i know a lot of people that can fake feeling good about themselves with the best of them...but it's not real)
Some of it is being objective and realistic in our expectations of ourselves. Body image is tough because we have messages all around that tell us what beauty and looks we are supposed to aspire to.
I think our expectations for ourselves generally give us a good kick in the @ss more than anything else.
mtmo
Re:Our self concept paul76: Well, mtmo...
If you want to do the kickin................
potzy
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