Self Perception - How We Perceive Ourselves is Based on Our Self Beliefs

The pathway forward towards happiness and authenticity is not determined by something outside ourselves. It's determined by our own thinking, our own inner process, our self perception.

So if our way forward feels blocked, it is blocked by the way we perceive ourselves, by our fears and how they cause us to act toward ourselves. We take forward with us our unhealed inner negative perceptions and recreate the same situations over and over.

What stops us moving forward?

We are stopped by what we think our needs are - what we think we want and by all the means we employ to try to escape from our fears and self hatred.

We are stopped by thinking that if we work towards a degree, find a better job, marry this person, attend this class, try out this new way, buy these new possessions, earn this much more money, begin yet another new project, then we will find our way.

We are stopped by our lack of compassion for ourselves, by our self loathing. It is fear that creates this self perception.

Shifts in self perception

It was Jung who said that the process of becoming a person begins with a mess - most of us don't have to look far to find that mess.

When left to our own devices, we instinctively respond to our messes from fear rather than love. This means that we spiral more deeply downwards into the point of fear, until the day our circumstances bring us to a standstill and therefore open the way for a turning point.

What have been the messes in your life that have led you to a turning point?

What deeply held fears have been exploded by your allowing the light to shine on them and creating a shift in perception?

What have your turning points been?

To discover your authentic self is to be born into yourself again.

Our authentic self is deep within us in our childlike innocence. When we surrender, we surrender into that innocence which is pure love.

Surrender is not weakness or loss - it is powerful nonresistance. It is the whole notion of giving up our attachment to outcomes and results. This is a very fearful position to be in - the idea of giving up into the unknown.

I guess that's why it takes brokenness to allow these perception shifts to take place. The act of breaking up, or breaking down, actually becomes being broken open, and with that comes freedom.

Why?

It's just that when we surrender we give ourselves over to a natural ordered universe - and it feels like a homecoming!

In Zen Buddhism there is a teaching about self perception, called zen mind or beginners mind. The concept here is of the mind being like a bowl - if it is already full then there is no room to receive anything else.

In Hindu teachings, the idea of detachment and sacrifice go hand in hand with self-surrender and teachings about karma, while the root of the word Islam literally means surrender.

The Christian teaching talks about the need to 'come as children' - to be childlike - in order to receive. The inference here is that children are open to teaching; whereas we have already filled our minds with what we want to believe.

Surrender is about letting go control, letting go attachment to results and outcomes.

It is about giving in to love instead of fear - it is about letting go and becoming stronger not about letting go and falling.

It is about accepting ourselves where we are now, in this present moment, experiencing a shift in our self perception, rather than waiting until we are more.

The greatest way to change our self is to allow a change in our self perception.

The greatest way to change our world is to change our perceptions about the world.

The greatest way for this change to come about is through a change in our self beliefs.